


Eleven Months

by Amikotsu



Series: Whumptober Prompts [10]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Anger Management, Angst and Humor, Dependency, Don't Move, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Good Uchiha Obito, Grief/Mourning, Late Night Writing, M/M, Moving On, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Protective Uchiha Obito, Rivalry, Uchiha Obito-centric, Unhealthy Relationships, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2020-12-09 14:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 64,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20996630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amikotsu/pseuds/Amikotsu
Summary: Obito takes life into his own hands and decides to stay in Konoha. He doesn’t need some old man telling him what he can and can’t do. So what if he’s lost Rin? So what if he’s lost the ability to be a shinobi? He still has Kakashi. That has to be enough, right? Stupid Kakashi.





	1. Don't Move

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is huge and I'm not even sorry. That's the warning you get. :)

Lightning lit up the evening sky, the jagged white lines cutting through the humid night. One flash. Another flash. The darkness receded, momentarily beaten, only to return once more. With the sheets of rain and the looming fog, visibility had dropped, and yet he saw everything, he saw everything so clearly. The sharingan did that though, didn’t it? He memorized the way the bodies looked in their slumped positions, eyes open, mouths wide. They’d died screaming. They’d died before they even had a chance to defend themselves. They didn’t deserve the courtesy. They deserved to suffer, and he made them suffer. He beat some of them to death with his bare hands, but the rain had smeared the blood, attempting to rinse him of their filth. Kirigakure had moved on Konoha, and what a bad move that had been -- they needed to be punished, and he did just that. He punished them. Obito saw one man attempting to crawl away, though his legs were a tangled mess of splintered wood. The man’s bones were on full display, as if Obito had tried reaching inside and ripping the man’s skeleton out in one smooth movement. Obito was slow to get back to his feet. He swayed in the warm breeze, tasted the rain as it washed over him. He didn’t have to run to the fallen shinobi, so he took his time. He let the man crawl away, as if crawling would save the man’s life. When Obito reached him, Obito grabbed the man’s mask in one hand and shattered it in his fist. The broken pieces went to the ground, cracking against the hard rock. Another flash of lightning revealed the terror. Another flash of lightning revealed the tears. And Obito knew tears. He still tasted the salt from his own. Tears wouldn’t save that shinobi, just as Obito’s tears wouldn’t revive Rin. 

“Please! Forgive me!” The man fell, his shaking arms finally giving way. He had the strength to beg, and maybe Obito liked that about him. Obito listened to the man beg and plead until the man was nothing more than sobs intermixed with hiccups, and then Obito kneeled and started punching. He hit the man over and over again, until he could no longer make out the man’s face, until he could no longer hear the sobs. When the man stilled, Obito kept hitting him. Obito reduced the man’s face to a bloody pulp. If it weren’t for the cracks of lightning and the rolls of thunder, Obito might have stayed there all night, reducing the man’s head to nothing but brain matter.

Hell. Obito had said the world reminded him of hell. He forced himself to his feet again and slid in the thick pool of blood. He had to right himself to keep from falling, and then he was moving again. He had to get to Rin again. He just needed to see her face. Nothing stood between them then. He dropped to his knees and drew her body to his chest again. He moved one hand through her hair, trying to smooth the tangled strands. She smelled like lavender, and he’d loved that about her. Maybe it was her hair; maybe it was her clothes. He didn’t know, because he’d never asked. There were so many words he’d wanted to say to her, so many questions he’d wanted to ask her. And nothing mattered anymore, because she was gone. Obito couldn’t imagine a world without her. Breathing hurt him. Living hurt him. Getting revenge had dulled his anger, leaving him feeling the hidden weight behind emptiness. Obito rocked back and forth, mumbling apologies, promising anything and everything he could, if she’d just open her eyes again. He couldn’t leave her; he refused to leave her. So he stayed. Her eyes were open, though they saw nothing. Rin would never see anything again. Where death had spared him, death had claimed her, and none of his words would bring her back. Nothing he did would ever make things right. He’d lost her.

Guruguru warned him that people would eventually arrive. The chorus of screams his slaughter had ignited had been heard by someone, somewhere, and he couldn’t stay, not anymore. Madara had been right all along. He welcomed the view from within his stone room; he welcomed the boulder separating him from the world. He no longer had the will to fight. He would repay his debt. Obito returned Rin to the ground, though he took care to straighten her limbs and close her eyes. She looked as if she’d fallen asleep, as if the hole in her chest were nothing more than a play on the light. He shouldn’t have kissed her, but he did. He pressed his lips to her cheek, knowing that it would be the last time he’d ever see her, knowing that it was his final goodbye. He wondered why he’d ever wanted to return to Konoha. They’d needed him, and he hadn’t been there for them. No one needed him anymore. He heard soft groans coming from the night, and he thought he’d missed a Kiri shinobi, but then he remembered Kakashi. He saw Rin’s death all over again. Where he had expected anger, he found nothing but the emptiness. He turned his back on Kakashi and started the long walk to his new home.

“Wait!”

Don’t move. Obito heard the unspoken command. Obito stopped walking and slowly turned to face his former teammate. He didn’t think he had the energy to talk; he didn’t know if he even had the ability to talk. Kakashi had his left hand pressed over his sharingan eye. The rain couldn’t wash the blood from Kakashi’s cheek, where his eye had also gained the mangekyou sharingan. He shouldn’t have been conscious, let alone capable of speech, and yet there he was, awake and mostly coherent. Obito wanted to tell him that he’d broken his word; Obito wanted to tell him that he’d killed the last good thing left in Obito’s life. Instead, Obito stood there, waiting, just as Kakashi had requested. Hell. He thought it fitting that someone else suffer along with him. Maybe that was why he hadn’t closed the distance between them and shattered Kakashi’s skull, just as he’d shattered that last Kiri nin’s skull. Obito felt like screaming again. He felt like shouting at the heavens to take him, to end it all, but the slaughter had taken so much out of him. Loss had taken so much out of him. He’d been plunged, head first, into the stages of grief. And he’d been sucked beneath the surface of the proverbial waves.

“Why me?”

At Kakashi’s question, Obito surveyed the large tree that he’d created, its branches twisted in the corpses of Kirigakure shinobi. Away from the tree, bodies had grown branches of their own. Every inch of the battlefield had been bathed in the blood of his enemies. One look down at his feet revealed the blood around them. The rain couldn’t restore a lot of things. It couldn’t restore his innocence. It couldn’t restore his love. But there was someone out there, meters away, that felt the same. Guruguru wanted Obito to leave, to return to the stone prison, but Obito hesitated. Kakashi had moved his hand away from his eye, so sharingan met sharingan. Obito remembered the day he’d gifted his eye to Kakashi. He remembered lying there, waiting for death to take him. That had been another hard day in his life. He’d seen them leave. They’d left him to die. Obito had the choice to walk away, leaving Kakashi in the way that Kakashi had left him. He had the choice to turn his back on the boy, losing himself in the dark, downward spiral that would overtake the numbness shrouding his heart and mind. Guruguru warned Obito that others were approaching, that they really needed to leave, but Obito continued staring at Kakashi. Could he honestly turn his back on Kakashi? Obito had never been that type of person; Obito had always found a way, a ray of light in the darkest of times.

“I’m not going back.”

Obito surprised himself with those words. Guruguru parted, revealing Obito’s face and that single sharingan eye. Even with the poor visibility and the pounding rain, Kakashi saw him. Guruguru unwrapped itself from around Obito and Obito collapsed onto his knees. He tipped forward and tried catching himself, but he only had the one good arm. He quickly connected with the ground, his chin knocking against the rock. He tasted the metallic tang of blood, where he’d bitten his tongue. It was Obito’s turn to crawl; it was Obito’s turn to struggle. Guruguru stood there for a moment longer, just watching Obito fight, and then it turned away. Obito rested his cheek against the ground and looked up at Guruguru, one of the three people he’d come to know in the past months. He expected Guruguru to grab him and drag him away, but that never happened. One moment, Guruguru was there, and then it was gone, abandoning him. Kakashi had gotten to his hands and knees, and then, finally, he stood. He swayed, just as Obito had swayed, but Kakashi forced himself to move, to keep moving. They met somewhere in the middle, when Obito’s arm finally gave out. Obito rolled onto his back and let the rain have him. His tears had stopped, but they started again. He let out the scream he’d felt building, and he thrashed against an unseen force. Kakashi sank to his knees and grabbed Obito’s flailing arm. They were both crying, both of them dealing with their emotions in their own ways. That was how the search parties found them.

Obito didn’t remember much of the journey back to the village. What he did remember was seeing the way the fog lingered around the tops of the trees, the leaves and branches slick with rain. He remembered an older man bending down so that he could hop onto the man’s back. And he remembered Kakashi. Someone had Rin’s body -- he knew that -- but he found himself searching for her amongst the other shinobi. Obito wondered if everything that had happened over the last several months had ever actually occurred. Some part of him whispered that it had all been a twisted dream, some sick nightmare. The cloak Guruguru had left him reeked of blood though, and the smell transported him back to the killing spree. That nightmare had quickly become reality. 

Obito thought the shinobi carrying him would take him to see the Hokage, but the man took a different route. The group split apart, Obito and Kakashi going one way, while the others went another. Obito outstretched his hand, as if trying to grasp Rin’s body, but the people ignored his silent plea; he watched her disappear, and then he was consumed by the sterile smell of hospital disinfectants. When the man carrying him bent down, Obito slid off his back and stood there, bare feet on the cold tile floor. He followed after Kakashi. His hand covering the remains of his right arm, he stumbled along. At one point, the medic leading the way stopped and motioned to one of the hospital rooms. Kakashi went to leave, and Obito followed him.

“It’s one to a room,” the medic tried to explain, reaching out to touch his right shoulder.

Obito rounded on her and bared his teeth, snarling at her like a cornered animal. She took one step back, her mouth open for a startled gasp. Obito went into the room with Kakashi and slammed the door in her face. She tried to open the door, but Obito rested his back against it and slid down to the floor. He used his feet to brace himself and pushed back against the woman’s shoves. Kakashi approached Obito and slid down the length of the wall, landing on the floor next to Obito. It was just the two of them and the quiet of the dimly lit room. Outside, the rain continued to fall. Lightning flashed outside and Obito caught a glimpse of Kakashi’s tired face. Obito knew he must have looked just as bad, if not worse. He knew the rain hadn’t cleaned all of the blood from his body. He knew he smelled, just as his cloak smelled, yet Kakashi stayed beside him. They needed to talk about what had happened, but neither of them wanted to start the conversation. When the medic gave up trying to force her way into the room, Kakashi brought his knees up to his chest, his arms encircling his legs, and stared out the window, while Obito stretched his legs out.

“What happened?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You conned me into thinking you were dead for eleven months. I have time.”

Obito leaned his head back against the door and stared up at the ceiling. The light behind the hospital bed flickered once, then it remained steady. He’d been gone for eleven months. He hadn’t even recognized how much time had passed. Madara hadn’t exactly kept a calendar handy, and he never liked Obito talking about the past, about anything tying to Konoha, unless Madara led the conversation. Obito was surprised that Guruguru had let him go, considering Madara had been adamant about Obito repaying the debt. Obito didn’t even know if he’d stay in Konoha anymore, but he’d made a split-second decision to stay with Kakashi. He’d decided not to give up on his friend, if he could call them friends. Beside him, Kakashi hadn’t looked away from the window. Kakashi wanted to know about the past eleven months, and Obito decided that the months had been another sort of hell, a dark chasm he thought he’d never escape. All he’d thought about was returning to Konoha, returning to Rin and Kakashi. But it wasn’t the same without Rin.

“I was saved by an Uchiha. Madara. He did something to me,” Obito said, opening and closing his fist. His right arm ached, as if he still had an arm there. Kakashi didn’t interject, didn’t even look ready to call a bluff, so Obito took a deep breath and continued. “He gave me a new arm. He told me I had to repay him for saving my life. The healing took months, and it wasn’t done. I heard you were in trouble, so I tried escaping. I wrecked the arm. Guruguru helped me escape. He, it,” Obito paused and made vague hand motions toward his face, “he acted like armor for me. I saw what happened, Kakashi. I saw her die.”

“I didn’t do that,” Kakashi argued, though he didn’t raise his voice. He lacked any anger. Really, he lacked the energy needed to fight, so he didn’t continue. He left Obito to pick up the conversation and share the rest of the story, the story Kakashi had missed. Kakashi only remembered Rin uttering his name; he remembered how her body had gone slack, and then they were both falling. Obito didn’t continue speaking, and Kakashi realized too late that Obito had started crying again. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I wouldn’t do that to her.”

“It doesn’t matter if you did it on purpose or on accident! She’s gone! She’s dead!” Obito found the anger and gave everything he had to shout at Kakashi. He wanted to reach over and strangle the life from his former teammate. He wanted to put his fist through Kakashi’s chest and rip out the boy’s beating heart. He wanted Kakashi to feel as bad as he felt. One look at Kakashi confirmed that the boy had resumed crying as well. 

Two medics worked together to open the door. One of them reached for Obito, but Obito pulled away, letting the woman grasp at the air. Kakashi hadn't put up a fight, so he was being led out of the room. Obito screamed as loud as he could and the medics scattered, both of them shocked by his display. Obito went over to Kakashi, grabbed the boy's arm, and yanked him back into the room. Realization slowly dawned on the two women and they retreated. Several minutes later, two men were pushing another hospital bed into the room. Obito didn't trust them. He didn't trust them to take care of him, nor to take care of Kakashi. Maybe it was juvenile, maybe it was asinine, but he felt one way about it all, and so he trusted his gut. He felt as if he were on an island and all he had left was Kakashi. Obito didn't need to be alone; he didn't want to be alone. Even though the room was too small for two beds, the medics made it work. The beds were side-by-side, and there was only room for one chair for visitors, but it all fit. For Obito, they'd made it work. 

The medics examined Obito first. His arm was slowly regenerating, which seemed to baffle them, especially when they poked and prodded and no blood bubbled to the surface. Obito hadn't had full feeling in the arm since the cave-in. Madara hadn't been able to restore the arm to its former glory, and then Obito had destroyed it before it had time to strengthen. The medics examined his missing eye next, then one disappeared to get a patch and some gauze, while the examiner moved on to Obito's sharingan. She had him activate and deactivate several times, then asked him to examine charts on the far wall to check his vision. He passed with flying colors, both with and without his sharingan active.

“How long ago did you receive this injury?” The lead medic touched his right cheek, tracing along the scars, and then examined his arm again. She asked him to remove his cloak, so he was shirtless with a pair of cut-offs from eleven months ago. Madara had been unable to save the rest of the pants. When Obito didn't respond, she mumbled to herself. “It's too old for us to repair the damage. We can't help with the scarring either, I'm afraid.”

“I don't care. I'm alive.”

“Yes, you are,” the woman smiled. She moved on to Kakashi next. She diagnosed them both with chakra exhaustion, in the end, likely due to the mangekyou sharingan and Obito's mokuton, which meant they needed to stay in the hospital overnight, at least. “No more screaming. You'll scare the other patients. Just rest, alright?” Kakashi was the only one to nod, because Obito had already settled into bed. 

Obito felt like he could sleep forever. He felt that sleep would finish where the rain had started and finally cleanse him of anything left behind. Before he could doze off, another medic brought in hospital attire for them to put on and told them they needed to shower. She pointed to an adjoined bathroom, then asked if they needed any help. When both boys declined, she lingered in the room until they moved for the bathroom. Kakashi went first, without complaint, though Obito knew Kakashi hated hospitals, and Obito went last. The shower reminded Obito a lot of the thunderstorm still going on outside. He thought about how the rain had felt on his face, when Guruguru had retracted, when Guruguru had finally left. He left his ruined clothes in the provided hamper, and then he walked back into the room. The medic was gone, and Kakashi was busy reading a lousy magazine. Someone had left a stack of them on the bottom edge of Kakashi's bed. Maybe he'd requested them. Obito claimed one for himself. If they were pretending as if nothing had happened, Obito could handle that. The shower had given him strength, though he'd cried most of the time. 

“You killed all of those Kirigakure shinobi with mokuton,” Kakashi spoke, breaking the silence that had only been briefly interrupted by the turning of pages. So Kakashi had recognized the style and tied it back to Obito. Kakashi was a genius, a prodigy in every sense of the word, so Obito shouldn't have been surprised. “Who taught you that?”

“It has to do with the cells used to heal me. No one taught me. I learned as I went.”

“So this ‘Madara’ experimented on you.”

“He saved my life, Kakashi. I can forgive him for that.”

As Obito climbed into bed again, the hospital bed creaked, the mattress sinking in to cradle his body. The magazine he'd selected had a picture of a shuriken on the front page, and it announced that there was a new shuriken on the market, one more aerodynamic than older versions. Obito moved the remainder of his right arm, rotating his shoulder. The nurse had wrapped gauze around the damaged part, securing it with clips. The gauze felt rough against his skin, but he resisted scratching. He didn't want the medic to return and find the gauze on the floor. He didn't want to sit there and wait while the woman wrapped clean bandages around his arm. On the other bed, Kakashi had lowered the lights and set his magazine back on the stack with the others. His magazine had a picture of the daimyo on the cover. The man was partially shaded, so only a portion of his face was visible. The magazine looked boring, so Obito found it fitting.

“You should get some sleep.”

Kakashi lay there, staring up at the ceiling, reminding Obito of how interesting the plain white ceiling had been for him. Obito moved around, the sheets bunching up around him, until he could reach the pile of magazines. He dropped the weapons magazine onto the stack and then settled back into bed. He missed the warm rain. He missed the fight-or-flight, the adrenaline coursing through his body. Without the rush, he just felt tired again. He closed his eyes and saw Kakashi's hand, the lightning crackling, the sparks flying. He saw Rin falling, her limp form connecting hard with the ground. Kakashi seemed to see the same images, to replay the same scenario. Obito pulled the blankets up to his chin and rolled over onto his stomach, trapping himself in the rough blankets. Obito turned his head so that he could see Kakashi. Kakashi had rolled onto his left side. They both stared at one another, both trying to fall asleep and unsure of where to begin.

“Goodnight,” Obito mumbled, thinking back to the two white creatures he'd left behind. He thought of Madara too, of the statue keeping Madara alive. 

Obito didn't know when Konoha would start questioning him, but he knew he'd have to face the Hokage, at some point. He didn't know what he'd say, where he'd even begin, so he let his anxiety slowly lull him to sleep. Hours later, he woke up to screaming. Obito jumped awake and started reaching for weapons he didn't have, trying to find something to defend himself. When the initial panic had passed, he found himself staring at a thrashing Kakashi. The boy was screaming and flailing, his dominant hand curled as if he were about to attack someone. Obito tried calling Kakashi's name, but it didn't work. He extracted himself from his blanket cocoon and shimmied his way over to Kakashi's bed, where he crossed the little bit of room between their beds. Obito wrapped his arm around Kakashi, holding the boy’s back against his chest. The door to the room flew open, but by that point, Kakashi's screaming had turned to sobbing. The medic waited until the sobs died down, and then she left, closing the door behind her. Obito must have dozed back off, because then someone was shaking him awake.

“You were screaming in your sleep,” Obito said, still half-asleep. He rubbed at his eye and yawned, but he remained awake. He wanted to doze off again, to dream of Rin again. “What time is it?”

“Eight o'clock. Did I keep you up?” Kakashi had a small tray a food before him, and one quick glance showed that Obito had a tray of food waiting for him too. Obito had trouble rolling over and getting back to his bed, but Kakashi let him go. Obito wouldn't have accepted the help anyway. Seated, with pillows supporting his back, Obito opened the small carton of orange juice and took a long drink.

“No,” he managed, pausing to take another drink. He hadn't had orange juice in months. “I dozed off when you stopped crying. I didn't make it back to my bed.”

“It's fine. Sorry,” Kakashi apologized, as if that would make things alright. Obito didn't think Kakashi needed to apologize for having a nightmare, not when Obito had likely had a similar nightmare. He didn't think he'd ever forget what had happened. The image had been burned in his mind.

“Don't worry about it. You can't control what you say or do in your sleep. I talked about you and Rin a lot, while I was gone. Zetsu and Guruguru used to make fun of me for it. I guess I just missed you two. I missed Konoha.”

“You're back.”

“The only reason I'm here is you.” Kakashi stared at him, both eyes wide, and Obito chuckled. Kakashi looked ridiculous that way, and it was odd looking at the sharingan, with Obito knowing it was his own. Obito thought back to his split-second decision to stay, but he couldn't say he regretted it, that he regretted going home. Anywhere was better than the cave. And he didn't miss Zetsu or Guruguru. If he thought of them, he thought of them in passing. “Are you going to eat or stare at me all day, stupid?”

“I'm not the one who decided to play dead for eleven months. That was stupid.”

“Yeah? You try being crushed by a boulder and see if you need time to heal.”

“Loser.”

“Idiot.”

Obito devoured all of his food, then he looked over at Kakashi's tray, eyes zeroing in on a shiny red apple. Unlike Obito, Kakashi took his time eating. Obito hadn't had good food in months though, so he blamed his poor table manners and voracious appetite on that. His grandmother would have slapped his hand and told him that he'd choke. He missed her. Obito decided that he'd visit her, as soon as the hospital released him. Arm or no arm, he knew she'd love him. Obito toyed with his chopsticks, poking at his empty plate and bowl, then glancing over at Kakashi's apple. Kakashi finally caught him staring. The boy looked from Obito to the apple, from the apple to Obito, and then he tossed the fruit over. Grinning, Obito caught it.

“You could have asked. Didn't you have any food while you were gone?” Kakashi's comment had Obito blushing, nervous laughter bubbling up and out. Kakashi finally opened his own orange juice and went back to concentrating on the remnants of his breakfast. He still had two hard-boiled eggs left. 

“You believe me, right? About Madara?” Obito took a big bite out of the apple, getting too much enjoyment out of the pop and crunch that the action caused. As he chewed, he continued talking. “I thought he was the grim reaper for a few days. He looks like what a grim reaper should look like. He's really old and decrepit.” Kakashi wrinkled his nose and looked away, confusing Obito.

“Do you have to talk with your mouth full? It's disgusting.”

“You're disgusting.” Obito swallowed, and Kakashi cracked the outer shell on one of his eggs. Obito took another big bite of his apple and juices ran down his chin and dripped onto his hospital gown. Obito wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then dabbed a handful of napkins at the damp spot on his gown. “You never answered me. You do believe me, right?”

“Someone had to help you. If you think it was Madara, maybe it was Madara. It could have been someone emulating him too. I wasn't there. You were,” Kakashi said, leaning over his tray to bite down on the egg. Obito stared down at his apple, at the bite marks in the fruit. He hadn't really considered the possibility that someone would pretend to be Madara. The man had the sharingan though, and he looked as old as dirt. Maybe he'd do Obito a favor and die. Obito didn't want Madara chasing after him, forcing him to leave Konoha. “Emulating means,” Kakashi began.

“I know what it means!”

After they’d finished their food, a medic came in to check on them. She had long blonde hair she kept pulled back into a high ponytail, and her long bangs were swept to the side, pinned in place with a bumblebee hair clip. Obito thought she looked like a member of the Yamanaka clan, but he didn’t want to ask. Her family name made no difference to him. She checked their eyes again, though she didn’t ask Obito to activate his sharingan. She didn’t waste time with small talk. She barely said a handful words to them. When she left, she said the Hokage was on his way, and that after the meeting, they were cleared to leave. She’d let her gaze linger on Obito’s right arm, so Obito wondered if she’d change her mind and decide to keep him even longer. He didn’t loathe hospitals, but he wanted to see his grandmother. He wanted to go home. Kakashi didn’t reach for the magazines again, so they had nothing but the sound of the clock to fill the silence. The ticking seemed so loud.

“What happens now?” Obito didn’t know why he’d decided to ask Kakashi, as if Kakashi knew the answer to such a heavy question. But Kakashi was a genius, so maybe he did know. Obito knew he couldn’t simply resume his previous lifestyle, not missing an arm, not without Rin. He needed options. And some part of him whispered that Madara could give him another arm, that the old man could restore him. Obito was already indebted though; he’d abandoned Madara, without thanking him, without bidding him goodbye.

“I don’t know,” Kakashi answered. He’d taken time to think, or maybe he’d simply allowed Obito the time to go through multiple scenarios, scenarios Obito hadn’t considered at all. Obito didn’t know how much he’d depended on an answer until he didn’t get one. Kakashi was probably one of the smartest people Obito knew, so if Kakashi didn’t have an answer, then how could Obito? “You should focus on getting better?”

“Why does that sound like a question?” Obito threw off his blankets, sending them down to the foot of the bed, and turned toward Kakashi. “Maybe I could teach,” Obito thought aloud. Kakashi must have found that funny, because he laughed. Blushing, Obito picked at imaginary lint on his hospital pants. He thought of the smile Rin would have worn -- she loved it when they got along -- and those somber thoughts ruined whatever happiness had crept into the moment. She would have wanted them to get along. She would have been there, sitting in that visitor’s chair, encouraging them. She always encouraged Obito. She was one of the few people to actually believe in him. She’d broken her word. She said she’d watch him, and she’d left him. She’d really left them.

“You’re thinking about her again,” Kakashi noted, his laughter long gone. Obito didn’t think he could form words, so he nodded. Kakashi could have said something more, said something to lift Obito’s spirits, but he wasn’t that type of person. He’d never been much of a motivational speaker. Rin had motivated them. “It’s my fault.”

“I could have killed you,” Obito finally said, after a long, tense silence. Kakashi didn’t seem surprised, so maybe he felt he deserved to die, maybe he felt that awful, both about himself and the situation. Obito clenched his fist. “I really thought about it. I thought about crushing your skull with my bare hands. I wanted you to feel the pain I felt.”

“Then why didn’t you kill me?” Kakashi had turned toward him then, so they faced one another. He looked like he wanted to shout at Obito, like he wanted to start an argument over why he should have died there too, just another corpse amongst a sea of corpses. Obito hadn’t wanted to be alone. He had wanted Kakashi to suffer; he had wanted Kakashi to spend the rest of his life reliving Rin’s death, until he was driven to suicide, until he craved an end. Obito had wanted Kakashi reduced to nothing. But that wasn’t Obito. Those couldn’t have been Obito’s thoughts. Obito cherished his bonds; Obito looked out for his friends and comrades. Kakashi couldn’t read Obito’s mind, so he asked again. “If you had the chance, why?”

“I don’t want to be alone. At the time, I wanted you to suffer. I wanted you to spend the rest of your life thinking about what you did. I wanted you to be alone. And maybe I thought you’d kill yourself,” Obito admitted, unable to meet Kakashi’s eyes. Obito felt exposed. He’d never been such a hateful person. He was there for comedic relief. His entire life was one high after another, just an example of how one kid pulled himself up from the ground and kept running. He wasn’t supposed to think such ugly thoughts. The rain and lightning and thunder had transformed him into some hideous creature, something very basic, running on nothing but human suffering. “I’m not proud of those thoughts.”

“You thought I'd kill myself?” Kakashi had focused on that one sentence, most likely because of his father. Obito didn't know all of the details surrounding Sakumo's death, only that the man had taken his own life. Obito knew he shouldn't have said anything, but he'd wanted to let Kakashi into his mind. He invited Kakashi to take a look at his thoughts at that very moment. “Do you still want me dead?”

“I don't know. No? I only have a few people left, and you're the only one who knows how I feel, so maybe not.”

“I was hoping they would kill me.”

“Well, they didn't, and they can't hurt anyone anymore.” 

Obito stared down at the white gown and white pants he wore. The juice from his apple had left a stain. His attempts to clean it before it dried had been wasted. Obito had never really talked about suicide before. He shouldn't have thought about it, not for Kakashi, and not for himself, but he did. He'd wanted to die too. Some part of him thought of suicide as a release, the world's heavy sigh as one more tortured soul fled the plain. Ending his own life meant he'd be reunited with Rin, and he loved her so much. He hated himself for never telling her. And it was too late. She was gone. Across from him, Kakashi had started staring at the wall at Obito's back. Apparently, neither one knew what to do when it came to talking about suicide. Obito had once thought suicide was for the weak, but maybe it took a strong person to look death in the face, to walk toward the end of the road. Obito wondered if Kakashi felt the same.

“Do you think it's weak to want to end your life?” Obito didn't want to ask about Sakumo, because he knew that Kakashi had still been focused on following the rules and putting the mission first at Kannabi, so Obito didn't think the boy could alter his frame of mind so quickly. Then again, a lot could happen in eleven months. Obito knew that much.

“I used to think so.” Kakashi had moved his gaze back to Obito, his left eye closed to conceal the sharingan. “I used to think my dad was weak, but after Kannabi, I saw the world differently. I'm still angry. I don't know if I can ever forgive him. But he wasn't weak.”

“No more stupid rules?”

“No more stupid rules.”

The conversation ended there, interrupted by someone knocking on the door three times. Obito called for the person to come in, and the door quickly swung open. Kushina stood there, a large gift basket in her arms. Minato came in behind her, carrying a single bright-yellow gerbera daisy in a glass vase. Kushina dropped the basket into the room’s lone chair and went to Obito first. She pressed her hands to his cheeks and turned his head from side to side, admiring the scars and the patch concealing his left eye. Without warning, she bent down and wrapped her arms around Obito. She held him tightly, and he thought he heard her sniffling. When she pulled back, he saw that her eyes were wet with unshed tears. He didn’t think he looked that bad, but he realized too late that she hadn’t seen him in months. They’d thought he’d died at Kannabi, and then he’d turned up again, missing his eye and his right arm. Minato went to hand the vase to Kakashi, but Kushina darted over to Kakashi’s bedside and repeated the hugging process. 

“I brought you clothes.” Kushina had released Kakashi and went toward the gift basket she’d deposited on the chair. “I didn’t know what size to get you, Obito, so I guessed,” she said, a flurry of movement. She went to Kakashi first and handed him his clothes, then she went to collect the remaining clothes. Obito saw the red-and-white fan before he had a chance to see anything more. He didn’t want to cry again -- he didn’t want them thinking he was a crybaby -- so he sniffed a few times instead. The shirt was short-sleeved and black, and the fan was on the back of the shirt, a little below his shoulder blades. His pants were also black, but he didn’t care about the color scheme. Kakashi had all black clothing too. “I thought you might want something with your clan symbol. Minato told me not to worry about it, but what does he know?”

“Yeah,” Obito managed to say, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat and reached out to take the clothes from her. “I bet they’ve been lost without me,” he joked. He waited for someone to laugh, but Kushina looked sad, even worse than she’d looked when she’d first entered the room. He noted that she wore a green dress over a white blouse, not standard shinobi attire. She’d changed. Everyone had changed. Obito stared down at the clothes in his hands, while Kakashi had already slipped off to the bathroom to change. “You look different.”

“See? He notices!” Kushina rounded on Minato and Minato held up both hands, a nervous laugh following. With a huff, Kushina turned back to Obito and flashed him a brilliant smile. Her whole face lit up. Lips pursed, Obito looked between Minato and Kushina, then back again. “I’m not active duty anymore, and Minato here isn’t either. We’re giving married life a try, you know?”

“So you gave up being a shinobi to be a housewife?” Minato, standing behind Kushina, tried waving his hands, gesturing at Obito not to ask that question, but it was too late. Kushina’s expression had darkened. Obito had seen Kushina angry before, but he’d never had her anger directed at him.

“A housewife? I’m not a housewife! I take missions every now and then!” She had a fist raised as if she wanted to punch Obito and he held up his clothes to try and shield his face. When she realized that she’d lost her temper, she slowly lowered her fist and tried smiling again. She looked scary, even with the smile. Obito truly regretted questioning her career change.

As soon as the bathroom door opened, Obito ran for it. He got inside the small room and slammed and locked the door. She couldn’t reach him there. Alone inside, he stared down at the clothes again. Kushina had gone through a lot of trouble to get the shirt. She must have asked someone for a favor. Obito struggled to dress himself, but he refused to ask for help. He took too long and accomplished nothing. He got his head through the right hole, but he couldn’t get his arm through. Half-dressed, he slammed his fist against the sink a few times, the dull thuds echoing through small room. He couldn’t even dress himself. Obito stared at his reflection, at the way the frown lines had settled on his face. Someone knocked on the bathroom door and he groaned, the sound a mixture of pure frustration and desperation.

“Open up. It’s me,” Kakashi said. Obito didn’t want anyone seeing him that way. He wondered if Kushina had suggested Kakashi check on him, or whether Minato had been the one to nudge Kakashi toward the bathroom. Obito waited until he thought Kakashi had walked away, and then he tried getting his arm into the shirt again. He got his hand in, but he ended up stuck. “Come on.” Obito bent down to reach the door handle, feeling a little like a contortionist, and clicked the button to unlock the door. Kakashi opened the door, slipped inside, and closed the door behind him. He took one look at Obito’s situation and he rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you just ask for help?”

“Would you have asked for help?” Kakashi didn’t answer, so Obito rolled his eye. “I didn’t think so. Now tug on the shirt. Wait. Pull on my hand. Just reach inside the sleeve.” Kakashi reached into the left sleeve and grabbed Obito’s hand, slowly guiding him through the motion. When Obito’s left arm was through, Kakashi helped with the right arm. The shirt was a little big, thanks to the weight he’d lost while with Madara, but he hoped to grow into it. “I think I can put my own pants on. I said, I think I can put my own pants on. Stop!” Kakashi had started grabbing Obito’s hospital pants and Obito lifted his leg to try to shove Kakashi away. He fell back into the toilet, while Kakashi crashed into the door.

“You need help.”

“I can do it by myself! I don’t want your help!”

“Fine, then Kushina can help you.”

“Wait!” Kakashi had reached for the door handle, but Obito slapped Kakashi’s hand away. “Just don’t look, okay? Close your eyes -- er, your eye.” Obito went to untie the knot on the hospital pants, but he couldn’t get it undone. He tugged on the strings until he tightened the knot, then he let out another groan. In front of him, Kakashi sighed. Kakashi hadn’t seen Obito struggling, because his attention had been on the ceiling. Clearly, he hadn’t wanted to help Obito, and Obito knew that. Someone had forced Kakashi’s hand. 

“I’m not interested in what you have going on, Obito. Stop playing around.” 

“Fine! Help! Okay? I need help! I can’t do this on my own,” Obito shouted, holding his arm up so that Kakashi could see the large knot. He knew he should have been grateful, but he couldn’t feel anything beyond the frustration. He’d loved everything about his independence. If he couldn’t dress himself, how could he do anything else on his own? Kakashi wouldn’t always be there to help him. “Well? Help.”

“Give me a second. You made the knot worse by yanking on the strings,” Kakashi said, reaching down to fiddle with the knot. Obito turned his head toward the mirror and admired his reflection again. In the overhead light, the scars looked a lot worse. But he’d told the medic that he was alive, like that was all that mattered. He had to remind himself of his own words. “There,” Kakashi announced, taking a step back. Obito reached down and felt for the knot, but it was gone. Kakashi grabbed the pants that Obito had rested on the edge of the sink. He unfolded them and held them out, expecting Obito to step into them. 

“Turn your head away.”

“Do you want my help or not?” Obito waited until Kakashi turned his head away, and then he let the hospital pants drop to the floor. He gripped the edge of the sink for balance and quickly stepped into the new pants. Kakashi didn’t wait for him to say anything before tugging the pants back up to Obito’s hips. Frowning, Obito readjusted the pants, then he turned to collect his hospital clothes from the floor. The two left the bathroom together, and both Minato and Kushina tried to act like they hadn’t heard the entire conversation. “He’s dressed.”

“I see that,” Minato said, giving Obito a thumbs up. Kushina passed a pair of dark-grey sandals over to Obito and he slid them onto his feet. He’d almost forgotten about shoes. Minato collected the empty gift basket from the hospital-room chair, and then he turned toward Obito and Kakashi. “Let’s get out of here. There are some things we have to take care of.”

Obito followed along behind them, the last one to leave the room. He glanced back at the windows, remembering the night before. The storm had lasted for hours, and he remembered the way the lightning had lit the entire room. Not wanting to be left behind, he picked up the pace and fell in step beside Kakashi. Without Rin falling back to walk along beside him, he knew he’d get left behind. She used to take his hand and force him into a jog; she used to keep him going. He didn’t have anyone like that anymore. He felt her absence even more. The proverbial scab that had formed over the open wound had been scratched away, and by something as simple as walking with Kakashi. Obito just wanted to go home. He hadn’t forgotten his plan to go home and see his grandmother. He wanted her to hug him; he wanted to tell her everything that had happened. He knew she would let him cry. He knew she wouldn’t judge him. His home was a safe space. When he figured out that Minato was leading them to the Hokage, he saw his plans fall to the wayside. He’d almost forgotten the fact that he’d been declared KIA. 

“You’ll have to wait outside.” The group had stopped outside of the Hokage’s office and Minato turned to have a hushed conversation with his wife. Obito wasn’t surprised that the two had married, not with the way Minato had settled his hands on Kushina’s shoulders. Kushina had taken the basket from him and she leaned in to kiss him. 

“We’re having ramen for lunch. You owe me, you know,” she responded. Minato had once rambled on and on about her verbal tic, about how he thought it was cute. Obito remembered the first time he’d ever met Kushina. She’d shown up at the training ground, dressed in all black, save for the green jonin vest, and she’d beaten them all in a spar, three against one. Rin had liked Kushina a lot. “I’ll see you at home!” She waved a free hand, and then she spun on her heels and started walking away.

“Sensei, we’re not going home with you,” Obito spoke, clearly confused. He turned toward Kakashi and Kakashi lifted his shoulders for a shrug. Minato didn’t answer immediately. Minato led them into the office, choosing not to knock on the door. Obito was the last one in the room, so he closed the door behind himself. “Where’s the Hokage?” He pointed to the empty chair behind the desk, and Minato circled around the desk and sank into the chair.

“He is the Hokage, idiot.” Kakashi went to stand before the desk, but he turned his head to address Obito. Obito hurried forward to stand to Kakashi’s left. Minato had a small stack of papers on his desk, all of them covered in neat handwriting, and he began spreading them out across the top of the desk. “I’ll have my report in by tonight,” Kakashi said, his attention on Minato.

“I can have mine in too!” Obito added, trying to appear just as professional. He was ambidextrous, so he didn’t think he’d have any problems with writing the report. If he did, he knew he could always ask Minato for help. Minato had always helped Obito with reports, when Obito had trouble. “Is this all about what happened?”

“Yeah, I’ve already been through them, but I need your reports as soon as possible. None of the retrieval team saw what happened before their arrival, so it’s just you two,” Minato said, his expression surprisingly serious. Obito looked down at the mission reports, but he couldn’t read from his angle. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning, Kakashi.” And so Kakashi did.

Most of what Kakashi said wasn't important information. Rin had been kidnapped by Kirigakure. Obito could have used context clues to come to the conclusion on his own. But then Kakashi mentioned the three-tailed beast. Obito hadn't known that. He hadn't known the Kiri nin had done something so unspeakable to her. They'd forced her to be a jinchuriki. Obito hadn't heard the hushed conversation between Kakashi and Rin; he hadn't heard Kakashi refusing to kill her. Obito had seen one thing and missed the bigger picture. She'd died to keep everyone safe, something very much like her. What would have happened if she'd made it back to the village? The seal wasn't stable. The three tails could have destroyed everything and claimed a lot of lives. Obito was so focused on his thoughts that he missed when Minato turned the same question onto him. Kakashi had to step on Obito's right foot to get his attention.

“Uchiha Madara saved me from the cave,” Obito began, undeterred by Minato's skeptical expression. Obito rubbed his sweaty palm on the side of his left thigh. Beside him, Kakashi remained quiet. “That's what he calls himself, and I believe him. He has the sharingan.”

“You've been gone for eleven months, Obito,” Minato said, that same skeptical expression on his face. Minato stopped himself from saying something, because his mouth opened and then closed. He tried once more. “I'm not saying you're lying. What happened during those months?”

“He tried fixing my arm,” Obito said. He rotated his right shoulder. The limb had stopped regenerating somewhere in the middle of his shoulder and elbow region. It was a pale white, standing out against his black clothing. “There were two other things present. They said they weren't human. I called them Zetsu and Guruguru. They told me Kakashi and Rin.” He stopped when he said her name, as if saying it hurt him all over again, but he picked up where he left off. “They told me Kakashi and Rin were in trouble, so I blew out my arm trying to punch my way through a boulder.”

“This Guruguru acted like your armor, like Kakashi said?” Minato asked for clarification, so Obito nodded. “Keep going.”

“I didn't get to them in time. I couldn't save her,” Obito said, unable to say anything even remotely close to Rin's name. He was there, on the scene, all over again. Minato wanted him to relive the moment, wanted him to prod at the wound that had, at one time, seemed like a scab. “I lost control after that. I gained the mangekyou sharingan -- we both did -- and Kakashi passed out, I guess. I killed everyone.”

“By yourself?” Obito shifted under Minato's gaze, unable to stay still. Obito let his eye wander to the windows behind Minato. He couldn't look at his sensei's face. He felt too exposed. Obito eventually nodded, though it was a quick, short gesture, barely noticeable.

“I used mokuton and the sharingan,” Obito answered, a silent agreement that he'd done it by himself. “I told Guruguru I wasn't going back to Madara, so he -- it -- left. Then the shinobi from Konoha arrived.”

“Obito, you shouldn't be able to use mokuton. You understand that, don't you?” Obito shifted again, but he managed to nod. He wasn't stupid. He knew it had been unique to the first Hokage. He also knew it had to do with how Madara had saved his life. Minato rubbed at his temples, and Obito almost felt bad for him. Obito was a walking nightmare for the guy. “This is now classified,” Minato decided, after a long silence. “What happened there, what happened with Rin, it's now a village secret.”

“You can't! She died to protect everyone! People should know that!” Obito slammed his fist down on the desk, covering two of the mission reports. Everyone needed to know about what Rin went through. Rin was a hero. Even under Minato's frown, Obito never wavered. “She deserves to be remembered!”

“We'll remember her. We'll know what happened,” Kakashi said, not giving Minato a chance to reply. Kakashi looked like he'd rather forget; he looked like he wanted to wash his hands of what had happened. Obito didn't want to remember Rin's death, but he didn't want to forget what she'd done for them, for everyone. He didn't think he could have been that brave. He didn't think he could have made that decision. “Do you want a panic about another war? Kirigakure moved against us.”

“We have to think about the village, Obito. Kakashi is right. I don't know what I'm going to do about Kirigakure yet, but I don't want people thinking it'll be another war. The last one just ended,” Minato explained, reaching out to place his hand over Obito's clenched fist. Obito stared down at the hand. “She's a hero, Obito. Her name will go on the stone. I promise you.”

“You can't let Kirigakure get away with this,” Obito declared, approaching from a different angle. He directed his anger elsewhere. He thought about Kirigakure, about how it felt to kill all of those men. He felt the darkness beg for more death, for more suffering. He wanted the entire nation to pay for what those shinobi had done. “Why can't you promise me that? Promise me they'll pay for what they did!”

“We can't tell him what to do. He's the Hokage, Obito,” Kakashi reminded Obito. Obito whipped around to face him, already frowning, already anticipating a fight. Obito felt as if he were nothing but raw anger. “I want them to pay too. We all lost her.”

“That's enough, before you say something you'll regret,” Minato interrupted them, his eyes on Obito. 

Obito wanted to blame Kakashi. He had wanted to say that Kakashi had no right to miss Rin, when it had been Kakashi's hand that went through her chest. But he knew that wasn't fair. He knew that wasn't right. Minato had saved them all the heartache of hearing such nasty words and accusations. At the end of the day, Rin had chosen how she'd die, and no one had control over what had happened, except for her. Kakashi was a victim too. She'd used him to end her own life. Obito imagined that he would have felt angry, if he were in Kakashi's shoes. He would have been far beyond hurt. Obito couldn't even come up with better words and explanations. Bowing his head, Obito finally removed his first from Minato's desk and returned to Kakashi's side. Obito knew he shouldn't have let his emotions cloud his judgment, but he felt so strongly about Rin's sacrifice. If he would have gone back to Madara, if he would have let the fury fester, he would have brought hell down upon Kirigakure. He would have condemned them all. 

“I want to go home,” Obito finally said, his tone flat. When he looked up, he saw Minato exchanging a look with Kakashi. “I can go, can't I? I'll have my report in by tonight. I swear.”

“I know you will.” Minato smiled, though it was small and reeked of sadness. Obito stared at him for a moment, and then Obito turned to face Kakashi. 

“What was that look for? What's wrong? Did something happen?” Obito fired off question after question, while Minato calmly repeated Obito's name, trying to get his attention, trying to quell his panic and fears.

“It's your grandmother,” Kakashi said, suddenly unable to meet Obito's gaze. Obito grabbed Kakashi's right shoulder and started shaking it, causing Kakashi to shift on his feet to keep from stumbling backwards. And Minato kept saying Obito's name. Obito couldn't breathe anymore. He was seeing black spots, and then he activated his sharingan. He couldn't deactivate it.

“Where is she? What room number?” Obito was demanding then, so far beyond desperate. Kakashi reached up to stop his hand, to end the shaking. “Sensei?” Obito looked between them both. 

“She's gone, Obito. She passed away six months ago,” Minato frowned, his voice small, words almost lost amongst the sound of Obito's racing heart. And Obito's world folded in on itself for the second time. He was gasping for air, gripping Kakashi's shoulder so tight that he might have left bruises. 

“Breathe,” Kakashi started saying, repeating the word over and over. Somewhere along the lines, Obito had started crying. He felt the tears sliding down his cheek, could practically hear them as they dripped onto his shirt, the shirt with his clan symbol on the back. Why couldn't he just breathe again? “In. Out.” Kakashi kept coaching him, as if Kakashi had been there before, as if Kakashi knew just what to say. Minato had circled around the desk and started rubbing little circles on Obito's upper back. Slowly, the spots faded from his vision, and then he could breathe again. In. Out. In. Out. 

He needed to ask about their things, all of the china from his mother, the wakizashi and tanto from his father, and the quilt his grandmother had made him. Obito had slowly eased his grip on Kakashi's shoulder, until he could finally pry his hand away, then he deactivated his sharingan. Minato had stopped rubbing Obito's back, but he remained close to them. Obito had three people left in his life, just three, but it felt as if he were entirely alone. His grandmother had passed away. She passed away never knowing that he was still out there, alive, though mostly broken. He thought of her cooking, like the homemade daifuku she used to make him -- he loved sweets -- and then he thought of her hugs. He'd always complained that he shouldn't have so many hugs, because hugs were for babies and he was a genin, and then a chunin. She'd hugged him anyway. He was supposed to move into affordable housing in the Uchiha district, but she’d convinced him to stay. At the time, she said she’d miss having him around. Obito wondered if she’d died alone. She didn’t deserve to die alone. 

“What about our things?” Obito had stopped staring at the windows, at the bright, sunny day just beyond them, as bright as the gerbera daisy Kushina had carried away, tucked into her gift basket for another time. “What about the house?”

“You were presumed dead, so I’m afraid the house went on the market. All of the things were sold to pay for hospice care and the funeral. Kushina has a few items she kept though, so you might want to ask her about them,” Minato answered, appearing and sounding apologetic. Obito wondered why Kushina had kept any of his things. They’d always bickered, as he’d usually managed to say something to ignite her infamous temper, so he thought that they weren’t that close. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he really did have three people left. He silently thanked Kushina. Whatever she’d kept would fill the void created by his grandmother’s death. “There are some things we need to discuss, but how about we discuss it later, over lunch?”

“Where am I supposed to go? I don’t have a home anymore,” Obito reminded Minato, his head tilted to the side in question. Minato rubbed at the back of his head and chuckled, so Obito assumed he’d forgotten the fact or he’d wanted to delay answering the question.

“You’ll stay with me,” Kakashi answered. “I have a spare room in my apartment.” 

Obito wanted to ask more questions, maybe even object to the offer phrased as a final decision, but Minato clapped his hands to interrupt the beginning of the discussion. After he clapped his hands, Minato started leading them out of the room, most likely to a restaurant, maybe even to his home, so Obito let his questions fade to the back of his mind. He should have objected to staying with Kakashi, simply because they always dissolved into bickering and insults, or so it seemed, but he didn’t have many options. He didn’t remember the living arrangements with Minato and Kushina, so maybe they didn’t have room. And when did Kakashi decide to offer Obito a room anyway? Had he done it all on his own, or had Minato or Kushina encouraged him? They’d probably encouraged him, Obito decided. With Minato leading them, a lot of people stopped to wave and call out _Lord Hokage_. Obito got a lot of confused looks, the people staring at his empty sleeve and the scarring on his face. He ducked his head and tried to keep his attention on the ground. He thought he heard a few people asking who he was and what had happened to his arm and his face. He tried not to let the curiosity and the subtle judging get the best of him, but no one really remembered him, and that hurt too. He’d done a lot of D-rank missions, so he was constantly helping people. He helped people outside of D-ranks too. No one remembered him? He watched the way his sandals connected with the dirt road, the way his movements kicked up dust. At one point, he started kicking a small pebble along.

“Obito?” An old woman called out to him. Her right hand was full of bags, but she waved her free hand at him. “Is that really you, my boy? Where have you been? I thought you were gone!” Obito looked left and right, then he pointed at his chest. She laughed, a big laugh that carried to him from across the street, and then she nodded. “Yes, you. I’d recognize your face anywhere.”

“Hi, Mrs. Aoyama,” Obito greeted her, a small grin forming. He’d always helped her with her groceries. He’d weeded her garden a few times too. And he didn’t forget the time he chased her cat around the village. That cat was almost as bad as Tora, the hellcat of the daimyo’s wife. “I’m back now.” Minato and Kakashi had stopped to look between the two, both of them seemingly interested in the quick exchange. 

“You come over any time. I have new recipes to try out, and you won’t lie to me about how they taste, unlike my granddaughter,” Mrs. Aoyama commented, moving some of her heavy shopping bags to her left hand. Obito walked away from Minato and Kakashi, his feet carrying him through the passersby to the old woman. He held out his hand and she handed over three of her bags. “You’re such a good boy.” She reached up to touch his left cheek, and then she turned toward Minato and Kakashi. “I hope you don’t mind, Lord Hokage. I could use the help.”

“No, it’s not a problem,” Minato smiled, waving a hand. He turned to Kakashi and placed a hand atop Kakashi’s left shoulder. With his mask and hitai-ate in place, all that was visible was his right eye. “Kakashi, will you show Obito to the house?” Kakashi looked from Minato to Obito, and then he nodded. “I’ll see you both there. Don’t take too long. You know how Kushina is with ramen.”

“We’ll be quick,” Obito promised. Kakashi had walked over to Mrs. Aoyama and taken the rest of the woman’s bags, so all three began the walk to the old woman’s home. The walk to her home was filled with an endless stream of dialogue. She tried telling him everything that he’d missed, everything that had happened in her life. Her granddaughter had finally made genin and had her team assignment a month ago. She said she told her granddaughter she wouldn’t fret, but she was already worrying. She said she’d wanted her granddaughter to be a seamstress, like she was. “She’ll be a great kunoichi,” Obito decided, having waited for a moment to share his opinion. From his right side, Kakashi made a small noise, as if agreeing.

“I remember when you were a new genin and I hired your team to weed my garden. You pulled up all of my herbs and I hit you with a newspaper,” Mrs. Aoyama laughed, watching the blush creep across Obito’s face. Kakashi chuckled too, or so Obito thought. With the noise of the day, he couldn’t be sure. “It’s good to have you back, Obito.” By then, they’d reached her small, two-story home. Obito waited while she unlocked the door, and then he and Kakashi followed her inside. Mrs. Aoyama turned on lights as they went, killing the shadows in every room. “Just put them on the countertop,” Mrs. Aoyama said, motioning to the kitchen counters. While Obito and Kakashi dropped the bags on the counter, Mrs. Aoyama had begun digging through drawers; she produced a small cloth bag and rooted around inside until she pulled out a handful of hard candy. She dropped several pieces into Obito’s cupped hands, then she did the same with Kakashi. “As payment. I know you like sweets, Obito.”

Mrs. Aoyama led them back to the door, where Obito and Kakashi slid back into their sandals, and then she stood in the doorway and waved, until they could no longer see her. Obito unwrapped a piece of candy and popped a green one into his mouth, savoring the bite of the lime-flavored sweet, while Kakashi pocketed his own candy. Kakashi had never really enjoyed sweets, so Obito assumed he’d get more candy later, when Kakashi had the option between giving the candy to Obito or throwing it all away. While Obito sucked on his candy, Kakashi led them through the sea of people toward one of the housing complexes near the tower. Minato should have been in the Hokage residence, a large home located near the academy, but obviously that wasn’t the case. Obito thought they were going to enter one of the apartment buildings, but Kakashi cut down a side street and walked up to a nice two-story home. The outside of the building was cream-colored, and the roof was a brown, looking reddish in the sunlight. Before Kakashi could climb the two steps and knock on the door, the door swung open and Kushina grabbed the front of Kakashi’s shirt to drag him inside. Obito blinked a few times, staring at the spot where Kakashi had been, and then he followed. He left his sandals with the other sandals, and then he tried finding his way to the kitchen. The front door led into a long hallway, and he saw the backdoor at the very end. To the left, he saw a living room; to the right, he saw what looked like a lounge or office. The back rooms were the kitchen, on the right, and a dining room, on the left. The stairs were in the hallway, leading up to the second floor. Obito found everyone in the kitchen.

“I’m making salt ramen,” Kushina greeted him, already handing him a bowl with sliced narutomaki. Obito looked down into the small mixing bowl, then at the four large bowls lined up on the countertops. The kitchen smelled like the sliced pork and chopped shallots. Obito set the mixing bowl down on the counter and went to the sink to wash his hands, but he forgot that he didn’t have two hands. He turned on the water first, then hit the soap pump to get soap on his hand. Kakashi came up beside him and also grabbed some soap. As Kakashi washed his hands, he helped Obito wash his hand too. “Hurry up, if you want to eat.”

“I could have done it on my own,” Obito insisted, already drying his hand on a paper towel Kakashi offered to him. Obito had to put the towel down on the countertop and repeatedly swipe his hand over it, but he managed to do it himself.

“I know,” Kakashi lied, providing them both comfort, “but I needed to wash my hands too.”

“Thanks,” Obito mumbled. Kakashi nodded his head, and then they went separate ways. Obito went to add the narutomaki to the bowls, while Kakashi moved onto making eggs. Apparently, they were poaching them, which Obito liked. He’d never been able to properly poach an egg, so he hurried while adding narutomaki to the bowls, and then he moved over to watch Kakashi working. Kushina had already moved on to the shallots, while Minato seemed to be adding bamboo shoots. “Can I try making one?” Obito pointed to the egg swirling around in the pot of water. Kakashi didn’t look away from pot, where he gave the water another quick stir. 

“Are you going to mess up?”

“Probably.”

“Then no.”

Obito glared at Kakashi and pried the spoon from Kakashi’s hand. Kakashi must have let him, because Obito knew that he couldn’t have beaten Kakashi with just the one hand. Kakashi watched Obito remove the poached egg from the water and then Kakashi walked to get one of the bowls. Obito slowly lowered the egg into the bowl, then turned back toward the pot. Kakashi went to put the bowl back, but he came back to help with the third poached egg. Kakashi cracked the egg, while Obito had stirred the water. The yolk was slowly encased in white. Thin white strands circled around in the water, from where the white of the egg had started to separate from the yolk. Obito watched the egg swirl, twirling around and around in the quick moving water. 

“It’s not done yet,” Kakashi spoke, stopping Obito from scooping the egg out of the water. “Give it more time. You want it encased in white, just like it’s a boiled egg. No, not yet.” Kakashi stopped him a second time, so Obito removed the spoon from the water and waited for Kakashi to give him permission to remove the egg. When Kakashi told him to go, Obito lowered the spoon into the water and slowly pulled it out of the water. Kakashi repeated the process with the bowl, and then they had one more egg left. “I don’t like cooking them together because I think they form better when you cook them one at a time.”

“Who taught you to cook?” Obito couldn’t see Kakashi that well because Kakashi stood on his left side. If it had been a stranger, Obito might have stopped Kakashi from standing there, on Obito’s weak side, but it was only Kakashi. And Obito trusted Kakashi. 

“My dad, mostly. Kushina helped too,” Kakashi quietly admitted, his expression neutral. Obito looked in Kushina’s direction, but she was busy flirting with Minato. Obito thought he heard her calling Minato crazy, and then Minato moved in to kiss her cheek. Kakashi glanced in their direction, but then his eyes were back on the egg again. “This is it. Take it out.” Obito removed the final egg from the water and dropped it into the bowl Kakashi had held out. The two of them made a pretty good team, when they weren’t bickering. Obito thought he could get to used it, if they both set their bad attitudes aside.

“It’s all done,” Kushina announced, already grabbing two bowls. Minato grabbed the third bowl, and Kakashi kept his own bowl. Obito turned off the burner and moved the pot of water from the heat, then he followed after the others. They took their food into the dining room, where Minato and Kushina sat across from one another. Kakashi took the seat next to Minato, and Obito took the remaining seat next to Kushina. There was already a bowl of ramen waiting for him. “If anyone has any complaints,” Kushina started, already giving them an intimidating looks.

“I’m sure it’s delicious!” Minato quickly shut her down and she beamed at him, clearly happy with his words. Obito couldn’t remember the last time he’d had ramen, and he’d never tried Kushina’s ramen. The food smelled delicious, at least, and Kushina had taken great care to go for presentation as well. The food looked amazing, and they had so much food to finish. They all picked up their chopsticks and started eating. 

“It’s good for you, you know!” Kushina didn’t talk with her mouth full, so Obito made sure to swallow before he mumbled his agreement. She nudged his side, flashing another brilliant smile, and he couldn’t help but return it. The salt ramen wasn’t the best thing for their sodium intake, but he couldn’t argue that it was delicious.

“It’s not really healthy though,” Obito said, a bite already halfway to his mouth. He glanced at Kushina and she seemed shocked. He tried to backpedal, but he couldn’t have covered the words. He’d already insulted her food, in her eyes. “Well, it’s delicious though! I could eat another bowl,” he shared, though he was lying about the latter part.

“Ramen is healthy! It has vegetables in it!”

“Not a lot.”

“Take it back!”

“I’m just saying it’s got a lot of salt.”

“That’s it! You. Me. Right now.”

Minato looked back and forth between the two, then he sighed. Kakashi had already started shaking his head, clearly against the display. It was Minato who suggested Kushina finish her food, but she had made up her mind. Obito glanced down at himself, but he had no weapons on hand. For a moment, he forgot that he only had one arm. She would kill him, in a taijutsu match, despite the fact that she relied a lot on ninjutsu, rather than taijutsu. She was unpredictable. Obito remembered the last time they’d sparred. She’d kicked him so hard that he thought he would throw up. He’d collapsed and Minato had almost had to carry Obito home. Rin had been cheering for Obito, telling him that he could do it, but she’d quickly changed to cheering for Kushina, when Obito had failed. He remembered shouting that he was going to beat Kushina. He’d ended up with a foot-shaped bruise on his stomach. The bruise had changed colors for days. To his left, Kushina had let her temper cool, but she still looked grumpy. She wasn’t known as the red hot-blooded habanero for nothing. The rest of the meal was spent with Minato talking about his ascension to Hokage, as Obito had quickly changed the subject. Apparently, the third Hokage had almost named Orochimaru as his successor. Obito wondered what the world would have been like with someone like Orochimaru in charge. In the end, it didn’t matter. Hiruzen had decided on Minato, and that’s what mattered.


	2. Chapter 2

Minato volunteered to clear the table of dirty dishes, but Kakashi also started helping. Only Kushina and Obito remained at the table, both of them watching Minato and Kakashi gather the bowls, the cups, and the chopsticks. They needed two trips to finally move all of the dishes to the kitchen, and then they both returned to the table, carrying cups filled with tea and coffee. Kushina had never liked coffee, and Kakashi preferred tea, so they both had green tea, while Minato and Obito drank coffee. Obito added sugar to his coffee, but he took it black, the same as Minato; in fact, Minato had been the one to introduce Obito to the joys of coffee. He’d started sometime around his first chunin exams. They’d all gotten coffee, after Kakashi had made chunin. Obito recalled how proud Minato had been. Kakashi had acted like the accomplishment meant nothing, until he started bringing up Obito’s failure. It wasn’t Obito’s fault he lost. It had been the candy getting lodged in his throat. He’d started choking, and then Gai’s attack dislodged the candy and he spat it out. Obito remembered being embarrassed, being disappointed with his display, and then Minato had gathered the three of them, Rin, Kakashi, and Obito, and taken them to a small cafe, really more of a hole in the wall than anything. The black coffee had made him feel better about himself. He’d still been bitter. He’d still been envious. But he remembered Minato’s smile, and the way he rested a hand atop Kakashi’s head, ruining the boy’s hair. They’d all started laughing. Obito remembered Rin’s giggles, her attempts to keep from laughing at Kakashi’s sour expression. Obito didn’t know when he’d started staring at his coffee, but he noticed that everyone else at the table had started talking about the next chunin exams, which would take place in two months, right in the middle of December.

“Is there anyone from our class that hasn’t made chunin?” Obito asked Kakashi, assuming he’d know. Minato took a drink of his coffee, and Kushina focused her attention on the teen in question. Kakashi shook his head, and it was Obito’s turn to hide behind his coffee. 

“Gai made jonin, so did Asuma. Genma and Raido made tokubetsu jonin. They all had field promotions,” Kakashi shared, shrugging his shoulders. Obito looked from Kakashi to Minato and the blond man nodded, meaning he’d likely been the one to promote the group. “Kurenai is still a chunin. Yugao and Hayate are still chunin.” Obito stared hard at the coffee in his cup, as if trying to part the liquid. Kakashi didn’t seem to notice how his words had affected Obito. Obito didn’t think Kakashi intentionally hurt his feelings, at least. When Kakashi finally saw Obito’s face, he no longer added names to the list.

Obito had wanted to make jonin. If Kannabi had gone right, maybe he would have made it. He could have gotten a field promotion too. Instead, he’d disappeared for eleven months, building a life underground. Kakashi had been a jonin for over a year, so he’d been the first in their group to earn the rank. Kannabi had been his first time leading an A-rank mission and he’d ultimately failed. He’d lost Obito. Somehow, they must have destroyed the bridge, as the war had ended and Konoha was still in one piece. Kakashi always won, in the end. Obito couldn’t say he wanted to be like Kakashi, because Obito liked being himself, most of the time, but he had really wanted to make jonin. With one arm and one eye, he didn’t think that would ever happen, not for someone like him. He took a drink of his coffee, burning the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat. He should have blown on the liquid before taking a drink, like Minato had, but Obito had needed an escape, a reminder that he was still there, alive, and not back in the cave again. In eleven months, a lot had changed, yet some things had remained the same. Minato and Kushina had gotten married and moved out of their last apartment and into a nice home. Kushina had gone into partial retirement. Minato had become Hokage. And Kakashi -- well, Obito wondered what Kakashi had done, how Kakashi had changed. Kakashi had more patience with him. They could have dissolved into arguments and fights dozens of times, yet they coexisted, somehow. Loss forced them together, and they were making the most of a very bad situation. 

“I guess I can’t make jonin like this,” Obito said, moving his cup around on the low table. He didn’t look up to see their expressions. He didn’t need to raise his eye to know that they’d all exchanged looks. He’d destroyed his arm in an attempt to get to them, and he’d been too late. He’d lost Rin. He’d lost his grandmother. The coffee didn’t seem as soothing. He took another drink, burning his mouth all over again.

“It’s not over, you know. You can do lots of things, Obito!” Kushina placed her cup back on the table and started lifting finger after finger, listing off things others did for hobbies and jobs. “You could work at a weapons shop. You could try cooking lessons. You could probably get a desk job in one of the departments! Right, Minato?”

“Actually, I thought we could see someone about a prosthetic.” Obito quickly looked from Kushina to Minato. Obito didn’t want to work at a weapons shop. He could take the cooking lessons, but he didn’t want to try to cut things with one arm. The desk job seemed too boring, despite the fact that there were all sorts of positions available. The truth was, most people didn’t become shinobi to sit behind a desk all day. When Obito asked who, Minato smiled. “I talked to Orochimaru about it yesterday. He’s used to working with classified information, so I trust him.”

“I don’t like him,” Kushina frowned. Minato arched a brow at her and she took a quick drink of her tea, obviously giving herself more time to think about how she should proceed. Kakashi and Obito were both staring at her. Obito didn’t think Orochimaru was a bad person, certainly not someone to dislike. He’d been extremely important in the last war, and he was known for being highly intelligent. One look at Kakashi told Obito that Kakashi was equally confused. “There’s just something off about him, you know.”

“He’s good at what he does, and he’s willing to work with Obito,” Minato explained, reaching across the table to put his left hand over Kushina’s left hand. She still didn’t look happy, but she didn’t argue with him. The coffee and tea had cooled significantly, so they all worked on finishing their drinks. Obito couldn’t understand how someone as big and important as Orochimaru would bother with someone as lowly as him. Obito finished off his coffee and nudged his cup away toward the center of the table.

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime? I need money. I’m not going to stay with Kakashi without contributing something,” Obito spoke, breaking the silence.

“You don’t have to give me money. I have a spare room,” Kakashi said, repeating the words he’d said in the office. Obito pursed his lips, staring Kakashi down. When it became clear that Kakashi wasn’t backing down, Obito turned to look at Minato, as if the man would step in and say something encouraging. Minato didn’t get the chance, because Kushina pounced.

“You could always stay with Fugaku and Mikoto. She could always use help with Itachi,” Kushina suggested. “She actually volunteered to take you in. I told her I’d let you know you were more than welcome. I’d love to have you stay here, but we’re a little short on space.” She looked at Minato and he nodded, encouraging her. Obito’s brows furrowed at their interaction, but he waited for her to take a deep breath. “I didn’t retire because I’m tired of active duty, or because I want to be a housewife, Obito,” she said, throwing a dark look his way. “I’m pregnant. Our spare room is going to be the nursery, so it’s still under construction.”

“You’re pregnant?” Kakashi stared at her, then his gaze fell to her stomach. Obito’s eye had widened, and he glanced at Minato to get confirmation. Minato smiled and nodded, once again touching Kushina’s hand. Kushina seemed a lot happier, a lot calmer than she used to be. Obito really couldn’t picture her becoming a housewife, not even a mother, but she’d always been there for Team Minato, so he didn’t think it was that much of a leap. If anyone could do it, Kushina could. “How long have you known?”

“I’m ten weeks along,” Kushina said, touching her stomach. It was Obito’s turn to stare at Kushina’s stomach, to try to see some extra weight concealed by her green dress, but nothing was there. There were no signs showing she was expecting a child. Then again, two and a half months wasn’t exactly that far along. She’d eventually start showing. Obito should have been happy, but he felt as if everyone had left him behind. Obito looked at Kakashi to see that he hadn’t exactly accepted the thrilling news either. “Isn’t it great?”

“Yeah,” Kakashi managed to say, speaking for Obito too. Obito didn’t think it was that great, and he felt bad for thinking those thoughts. Kakashi left the table, taking his empty cup and Obito’s empty cup to the kitchen. Kushina’s expression fell and Minato mumbled something about talking to Kakashi. When Minato left the table, Obito thought about following him, but Kushina was really waiting on him to answer her question. Kakashi’s response hadn’t been enough.

“It’s great,” Obito lied, forcing a grin. Kushina saw right through him. He stared down at the table, so that he wouldn’t have to see her fallen expression. Pretty soon, Minato and Kushina would be so wrapped up with their growing family that Obito would lose them too, which shouldn’t have been surprising, which shouldn’t have hurt him as much as it did. He felt as if he were standing still, while the whole world was passing him by. A lot had happened in eleven months, something he realized over and over again. “Sensei said you have some of my things?”

“I do.”

“Why would you keep my things?”

“Your grandmother gave them to us. Why don’t you wait in the living room? I’ll go get them,” Kushina spoke, patting his shoulder. She got to her feet and disappeared into the hall, most likely on her way to one of the upstairs rooms. Obito watched her go, then he left the table and went for the living room. He had to pass by the kitchen, and he saw Minato resting a hand atop Kakashi’s head. Obito had never noticed Kakashi’s height, not until that moment. The boy had grown; then again, Obito had grown too. Obito didn’t stop to eavesdrop on them, but he still heard some of the conversation. Kakashi said something about a reassignment, and Minato shook his head.

By the time Kushina returned, Obito had taken a seat on the couch and started reading a newspaper that had been left on the coffee table. Obito looked up from the newsprint and saw his father’s weapons, the wakizashi and the tanto, their sleek black sheaths reflecting the overhead light. His parents had both been from the Uchiha clan. While his mother had the sharingan, his father never activated his own. Without the sharingan, Obito’s father had relied a lot on taijutsu and kenjutsu. He could have been considered a weapons specialist, according to Obito’s grandmother, but he preferred the set of blades Kushina held. He’d called the wakizashi the moon blade, for the carving of the crescent moon near the hilt of the blade, and he’d called the tanto the sun blade, for the sun carved into the same position. Besides the blades, Kushina carried a thick leather book. She rested the blades on the coffee table and took a seat right next to Obito. As Kushina settled onto the cushions, their knees brushed, and Obito was reminded of the fact that he’d grown. When he was younger, he used to sit the same way with his grandmother, looking at the same book Kushina held. Kushina flipped through a lot of pages, until she bypassed all of the black-and-white photos from his grandmother’s childhood and into color. Obito saw his baby photos, saw his early childhood photos, and then he saw his team photo. Someone had added Rin’s photos in too, some of the ones he had hanging in his room, embarrassingly enough.

“Rin and I finished the album for your grandmother, and she told us to hang onto it for her. She entered into hospice, and I never had the chance to return it. I didn’t have the heart to throw it away, so I kept it,” Kushina explained, pointing to the team photo on the right page. Obito remembered being caught with that photo before. Kakashi had peered through Obito’s bedroom window and caught Obito kissing the photo. He’d wanted to simultaneously punch Kakashi and fade into the floorboards. Kushina smiled fondly, her finger tracing over their faces. “She actually gave Kakashi the swords, but he told me to grab them from his apartment when we were in the hospital.”

“Do you think he used them?” Obito reached out and grabbed the tanto. He slid it out of its sheath and examined the sharpened edge and the dangerous tip. The blade looked as good as it had looked before, right down to the way the light reflected off the metal. 

“He refused to use any other tanto,” Kushina whispered, one hand up to her mouth as if to direct the quiet words to Obito’s ears. Obito went back to staring at the blade and she flipped through a few more pages. “Rin took these.” Kushina pointed at the very last photos, all of them of Kakashi, Minato, Kushina, and Obito’s grandmother. Obito touched the plastic shielding one of the photographs, his finger hovering just below his grandmother’s face. She’d smiled at the camera, though she looked tired. She was sitting on the steps outside of their house. “That is the last photo we have of her. We all went to her funeral, Obito. She wasn’t alone, not for a second.”

“Did she suffer?” Obito couldn’t tear his gaze away from his grandmother’s face. Her smile had been infectious, and he’d loved her so much. He’d thought that he would return to his life, like a seamless transition, and the time he spent in the cave would seem like nothing, as if he’d blinked his eye once and gone from one point to another. Everything had crumbled away. He had no solid ground beneath his feet, just shifting sands.

“No, she passed away in her sleep. As clan head, Fugaku handled the funeral. Her genin teammates showed up and said such nice things about her.” Kushina waited until Obito had moved his hand, and then she closed the photo album. She handed him the thick book, the one with pages left to fill, with holes left for so many more people and places. Obito had a blank canvas, and he wanted to fill every page with his life, the life lacking Rin, the life lacking his grandmother. “We might be able to get some other things back. The items were sold to two pawn shops. I can track the stuff down. Mikoto and I handled most of the work. I’m sure she’d be willing to help me again.”

“Please. Find everything you can. My mother had china. My grandmother made me a quilt with the clan symbol,” Obito started, already trying to think of everything he’d cherished. He didn’t need everything, just the big items. He didn’t add anything to the short list, so Kushina ran a hand over his hair and nodded. “I don’t have anything right now, but I swear I’ll pay you back. I’ll do chores, if I have to.”

“You don’t need to do that, Obito,” Minato interrupted them, standing in the doorway going between the kitchen and the living room. Kakashi had entered into the room and claimed a seat in one of the chairs. The moment Obito had shared with Kushina had passed. “I can get your money back, and I can get you the pay for your last mission too. It might take a day or two though. Until then, I can give you some money for necessities, like some clothes.”

“Just accept it. He won’t take no for an answer,” Kakashi cut in, right before Obito was about to object. Obito frowned, but he gave a firm nod. Kakashi finally noticed the two blades on the coffee table, so Obito watched Kakashi’s face to see if the boy would react. Of course, Kakashi didn’t. Obito didn’t think he was supposed to know that Kakashi had obviously cherished the weapons, so he didn’t bring it up. He wanted to say something, but he knew it would only lead to an argument, and he didn’t want an argument. Knowing that Kakashi had taken care of the swords meant a lot though.

Minato left them for a moment, but he returned with a wallet in hand. The wallet was in the shape of a frog, and Minato seemed almost proud of the beat-up thing. Kushina had rolled her eyes though, as if seeing the wallet bothered her. The thing had seen better days. What kind of grown man used a frog wallet? Kakashi didn’t bat an eye, when he looked back and saw Minato counting out some money. “You have a frog wallet?” Obito pointed at the frog and Minato looked offended.

“It’s a toad,” he said, holding up the wallet for Obito to see. Obito didn’t really see the difference. What was the difference between frogs and toads anyway? Weren’t they related? The thing looked like a frog. “It’s a toad,” he insisted, taking a moment to look at the wallet. He closed the distance between Obito and himself and started handing Obito money. “I think this should be enough.”

“This is way too much! I don’t need this much! Wait! Stop! You’re adding more!” Obito tried to give money back, but Minato closed the toad wallet and tucked it into his pants pocket. Obito refused to take the money. He got up and tried handing it back, over and over again, but Minato held up his hands as if in surrender. Eventually, Kakashi got tired of the scene. He got to his feet, grabbed all of the cash from Obito’s hand, and tucked it into his own pocket. “Hey!”

“You took it. Let’s go,” Kakashi said, motioning toward the front door. Kushina handed Obito the photo album he’d left on the couch cushion, then he collected the two blades from the coffee table. Kakashi eventually took the blades, since Obito couldn’t juggle everything, and he led the way from the home. 

Outside, the sun beat down on them; the afternoon heat had arrived to bake the earth. Nothing remained of last night’s thunderstorm. Some of the people had disappeared from the streets, most likely trying to avoid the hottest part of the day. Selfishly, Obito hoped that Kakashi’s apartment had air conditioning, or at least a few fans. They walked along, side-by-side, through the streets, passing numerous shops and restaurants, homes and apartment buildings, until they reached an area more known for its shinobi population. Kakashi stopped outside of a grey, three-story building. There was a second-floor balcony over the front door, and a fire escape on the left side of the building. Kakashi entered into the building first and held the door open for Obito. The grey lobby area of the building had mailboxes to the right of the door, built into the wall, and there was a main staircase directly in front of the door. Three steps led down to a small door marked with a number one. The rest of the numbered apartments were upstairs. 

“Which one is yours?” Obito didn’t ask until they were already moving up the stairs. Kakashi wasn’t in a hurry to get up the stairs, so Obito took his time too.

“Four. I’m on the top floor. There are five apartments in the complex,” Kakashi answered, waiting until they’d passed the second floor to speak. Obito had been hoping for the apartment with the balcony, because he used to love opening the windows at his old house to let in the cool breezes. Those breezes were refreshing on hot days. “We can go back out to get you clothes.”

“You don’t have to come with me.”

“Are you going to carry all of the bags by yourself?”

“Fine.”

When they reached the top floor, Kakashi walked to the apartment at the end of the hall, right on the left. The door had the number four marked on it in gold. The place didn’t have much of a color scheme, as everything was varying degrees of grey, but the building was well maintained. The floors didn’t creak, the stairs didn’t groan -- the place seemed peaceful. Kakashi rooted around in his pocket until he found the key, then he slid the key into the lock, jiggled the handle three times, and opened the door. He stood back and let Obito walk in first, so they both lingered by the door, trying to remove their sandals and stow them away. 

“I sleep on a futon, so that’s what the spare room has,” Kakashi said, leading Obito into the apartment. Kakashi paused at the first room, on the right, and opened the door to a small powder room, which then led into the actual bathroom. He closed the door and moved over to the doors on the left wall. One revealed a room with tatami flooring, a small, low table, and what must have been a nice-sized closet. “This is my room. Your room is next door. It looks the same.” As if to prove his point, Kakashi closed the door to his room and moved onto the next. The layout was exactly the same. “The futon is in the closet. It’s clean, but it needs aired out. I can help you before we leave. We can use the backyard.”

“We shouldn’t air it out now. It just rained.”

“Then you can sleep with all of the dust.”

“Fine, we’ll air it out.”

“I thought so.”

The kitchen was directly across from the bedrooms, and it was a lot smaller than Obito had imagined. The kitchen at his home had been much bigger, in comparison. The apartment had a two-burner gas range top on one counter, one open countertop space, a kitchen sink, and then another open countertop space. There were cabinets above the two countertops and the sink. Obito lingered in the kitchen, staring at the small refrigerator, while Kakashi walked toward a couch in the front of the apartment. Kakashi really didn’t have a lot of space in the apartment at all, but Obito guessed that the rent wasn’t too bad, since he had close to nothing in the place. The couch was actually a dark brown loveseat, close to the color of rich, dark chocolate, and a small coffee table was in front of it. Obito had already passed the low table that must have served for meals. Kakashi didn’t have a television. He had two large bookcases framing a large picture window that looked out onto the village. There were a lot of books in the bookcases, and Obito wondered how many of them Kakashi had actually read. He went over to one and started reading some of the spines. Most of them sounded like fiction, though he couldn’t get more specific than that. When he stepped back from the bookcase, Obito found his favorite spot. The wall on the right had access to the fire escape, so there were two windows that slid open, both of them large enough for a grown man to get through. Obito opened one of the windows. Even though the view was of the building next door, a nice breeze passed between the buildings and went in through the window.

“I usually keep the windows closed.” Kakashi had walked over to the other window and opened it. “You are going to want to open the windows, aren’t you?”

“Sometimes. I used to do it a lot at home. You probably know, since you liked to peer through them so much,” Obito said, shooting Kakashi a look. Kakashi snorted, though he didn’t argue. He’d been caught enough times. And it wasn’t as if Kakashi had enjoyed peeping on Obito. It had been easier to tap on Obito’s windows than to go to the front door and ask for him, since his grandmother had always wanted to invite Kakashi inside and force food down his throat. She’d always said Kakashi needed a good, home-cooked meal. Obito missed her so much. He could remember the last thing he said to her. He’d told her he loved her, and she’d made him promise to come home safe. He’d broken a promise too. Kakashi must have read something on Obito’s face, because he shut the windows, cutting off the light breeze. “What are we doing, Kakashi?”

“If I stop, I don’t think I can start again.” Kakashi didn’t hesitate. He had turned to stare out the window at the building next door, as if he could imagine the world beyond that brick wall. Obito had never considered the possibility that they were just running on fumes, trying to get as far as possible before they inevitably came to a halt, maybe before they crashed. The past twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind of different emotions, from unadulterated rage to crippling depression. Obito didn’t think he could start again either. He didn’t know if the next day would be harder, or the day after that. Without Minato and Kushina, Obito realized that it was truly just Kakashi. Obito decided then that they would both make it, or they would both fail. There was no other way.

“Fine.” Obito didn't know what else to say. The silence had pressured him.

“Let’s go find you some clothes.”

They left the blades and the photo album in Obito's bedroom, then they pulled out the futon from the closet. Getting the thing out of the apartment was a struggle. Obito tried his best to help, but Kakashi did most of the work. Kakashi went down the stairs first, carrying the weight of the futon, while Obito simply kept the back from dragging on the floor. When they got to the lobby, they took a right and exited through a door into the fenced-in backyard. The yard wasn't very big, but there was more than enough space for the futon. The yard had clotheslines, but there was also a large railing on the back porch. They draped the futon over the railing, making sure that it didn't touch the ground on either side. Someone else was airing a futon out, as the railing on the other side of the door had a peach-colored futon draped over it. There was still enough room for two more futons, but Obito didn't think many people used them. The apartments, if they had a similar layout to Kakashi's apartment, had enough room for actual beds.

After the futon was placed over the railing, the two boys left for downtown. Obito needed more clothing, clothing that fit him properly, so they stopped at the first shop they found. Obito tried on a lot of pants, some stopping above his ankles and others longer, before he decided on ones that stopped at his ankles. He thought he'd used bandages to secure the bottoms, that way the pants would last a little longer when he grew. Kakashi helped him find mesh undershirts and black, fitted shirts with short sleeves. For his high-collared shirts, they needed to get them from the Uchiha district, so they waited until the very end, right when they had finished all of their other shopping. Obito admitted to himself that he had butterflies. He'd been gone, so he wondered what the people would say about his sudden reappearance. Kakashi seemed entirely unbothered, carrying all but one of the bags Obito had declared that he'd carry. 

“This is it,” Obito announced. They stood before a large clothing store. There was a large window to the left of the door, so both boys could see all of the clothing options inside of the shop. “Wait!” Kakashi had already opened the door, but he didn't enter the building. Obito eyed the place through the window. “What if she doesn't recognize me?”

“She'll remember you. The last lady did.” Kakashi motioned for Obito to go through the door, so he did. The shop smelled a little like lemon, and everything was spotless. There was a small place in the corner, right next to a dressing room, where someone could stand and admire his or her reflection. Compared to the other shops, Mayumi's shop was a high-end store. For the clan, her clothes were affordable, and shopping there meant supporting the Uchiha. Kakashi didn't want to be there, so he walked off to look at clothing racks, while Obito walked deeper into the store.

“I'll be right there!” Mayumi called from somewhere in the backroom. She must have heard the bell over the door. Obito stood in front of the register and waited for her to emerge. When she did, she screamed and dropped the box she had been carrying. Her hand went to her heart and she leaned forward, as if standing up straight was too much for her. “God, you scared me. What are you doing here? What happened to you? Oh, Obito.”

“Sorry I scared you,” Obito said, though he was grinning. Mayumi had dark hair and eyes, along with a fair complexion, just like a stereotypical Uchiha, but she had a smattering of freckles on her cheeks. “I need some clothes. I was hoping you could help me.”

“Of course I'll help you. Clothing is what I do. Let's go to the mirror and I'll take some measurements,” she said, already gathering the measuring tape from the counter. She let Obito lead the way, and then she immediately went to work. “You've gotten taller. Pretty soon, you'll be taller than me!”

“I hope so. You're short.”

“I am a perfectly acceptable height.”

“Do you think you can have the clothes done by tomorrow?” Obito had decided not to bicker with the woman finding him clothing, which seemed smart. Mayumi clicked her tongue and moved away, having already jotted down some numbers on a tiny piece of paper she'd pulled from her white apron. She put the pencil behind her right ear and stood up straight. 

“If you need a specific size, I can probably have them done by tonight. I can alter some designs I already have. If you want something custom, it'll take more time,” Mayumi said, reaching out to ruffle his hair. He frowned and moved away from her hand. “How about you take a look around and I'll check the back. Tell your friend I'll give him a discount too. Any friend of Obito's is a friend of mine.”

“Thanks, Mayumi!” Obito went hunting for Kakashi and found him looking at black pants. Kakashi grabbed the hanger and handed it to Obito, who held them up to his own waist. “I thought I'd buy my shirts here,” Obito said, putting the pants back with the others. Kakashi motioned him over to another rack full of different colored shirts, all of them with wide collars or high collars, some of them with both. Kakashi grabbed a maroon-colored shirt with the red and white uchiwa on the back. “Red?”

“You don't like wearing all black, remember? You said it makes you too hot,” Kakashi replied, grabbing a navy shirt and handing that over as well. They were the appropriate sizes, so Obito kept them. “Get grey.” Kakashi pulled a dark grey shirt from amongst a pile on a display table and handed it to Obito. Kakashi saw a display for a tunic-style shirt in a purple shade, though Obito also thought it looked close to blue. The shirt went to his shins and came with a thick white band around the midsection. The sleeves were long, but Obito assumed he'd get a prosthetic soon, so his right sleeve wouldn't always billow in the breeze. Neither of them talked about the fact that they shopped for ninja apparel. Shopping for civilian clothing made everything too real. 

“I like it. Do they have anymore?” At Obito's question, Kakashi stepped aside, revealing a whole rack of the same shirt. “Grab them all. That's my new outfit.” Kakashi grabbed the eleven shirts and the two of them returned to the register to wait for Mayumi. Mayumi came back with two black cloaks, both of them with the clan symbol on the back. “I'll take them!”

“You didn't even see the best part,” Mayumi scolded him. She opened one cloak to reveal the pockets inside. Some were obviously for kunai, while other slots were better suited to senbon. “You can have them. Someone changed his mind last minute, and I'm not planning on going out in the rain.”

“Wait until I get my arm fixed, Kakashi! I'll be a jonin in no time,” Obito beamed, already dropping shirt after shirt on the counter. Kakashi didn't say anything, so Obito's smile slowly faded. He wondered if he'd ever see active duty again. He didn’t think he could handle living the rest of his life as a civilian. Kakashi would disappear, gone days and weeks, maybe even months, at a time, and Obito would still be in the village, trying to make something out of nothing. Obito wanted Rin there. He’d wanted to grow old with her. He’d wanted her to believe in him. If she were there, if she believed in him, he knew he could do it. Without her, he doubted himself. He hadn’t doubted himself in years. It had been hard to doubt himself when she was right beside him, cheering him on. “Hang on, Mayumi.”

“You can keep looking around, I’ll add everything up. Go on,” Mayumi said, waving him away from the counter.

Obito turned and walked through the store once more, lingering near the front right side of the store. That section of the store had kimono and yukata of all colors and patterns. The last time Obito had worn one, he’d worn a yukata, and he’d been nine, at the time. His grandmother had made him go to one of the festivals, and he’d lost his footing and rolled down a hill, falling into a particularly murky pond. His yukata had been an off-white, so everyone had seen his undergarments, right down to his boxers. He’d been so embarrassed that he’d started crying. His grandmother had told him that even with the pond water and the mud, he still looked handsome. On the way home, they’d stopped to get daifuku. Some kids saw him and laughed at him, and his grandmother had dumped her glass of water on one of the boys, revealing the kid’s undergarments too. She’d looked so smug. Obito remembered the kids scattering. He remembered the way his grandmother had brought a finger to her lips, her sign that it was just between the two of them. 

“Get one.” Kakashi had found Obito and moved to stand beside him. Together, they admired the fine clothing. Obito turned his head to see Kakashi, since the boy stood on Obito’s left side. “You have enough.”

“If you get one.”

“I don’t want one.”

“Look, they have one with a tiger. Get it. I’ll get the one with the dragon.” Obito had stepped forward and collected a navy-blue yukata. A silver tiger was on the bottom corner, its mouth open for a roar. He handed the yukata to Kakashi and Kakashi stared down at the yukata, visible eye twitching. 

“I don’t like tigers,” Kakashi said, putting the yukata back on the rack. Obito took it off again and shoved it at Kakashi’s chest.

“I don’t care what you like. You’re getting the one with the tiger.” Obito grabbed another navy-blue yukata, but his had a blue-and-silver dragon on the bottom corner, its body twisting around. Obito waited for an argument that never came. Kakashi, clearly frowning behind his mask, turned and led the way to the register. Obito looked down at the yukata he carried, focusing in on the detail. “These too,” Obito hurriedly spoke, adding his yukata to the top of the folded clothes. Mayumi had already straightened and folded everything, probably because she knew Obito would leave everything in a ball until the clothes were nothing but wrinkles.

“I have your measurements, Obito. If I can get yours, young man,” Mayumi smiled, winking at Kakashi, “then I can get them to size.” Kakashi shrugged his shoulders, so Mayumi collected her measuring tape and rounded the counter to stand before him. While she worked, she told him to hold still. When she finished with the measurements, she jotted down some numbers on another slip of paper, using the pencil she had behind her ear. “These will take two days. I have a couple of people ahead of you.”

“We aren’t in a hurry,” Kakashi said, stealing the words from Obito. Mayumi continued talking to Kakashi, reminding him of the obi they needed to go with the yukata. She took Kakashi back to the front of the store and they returned with two different sashes, one with brown and white, the other with navy and white. Kakashi held up both and Obito pointed to the brown and white one. “Is this everything?” Kakashi waited for Obito to nod, and then Mayumi finished totaling their order. The whole transaction took almost all of the remaining money. “We’ll have enough for takeout,” Kakashi informed Obito, tucking the remainder of the money away.

“Please not ramen,” Obito groaned, placing his hand over his stomach. The salt ramen had been too much for him. Kakashi actually laughed, though it was quiet, something just between the two of them. Mayumi even found some humor in it.

“Do you need any help with the bags? I can get my nephew,” Mayumi offered. There were three big bags, but Kakashi took them all, taking his total to six bags. Obito still had one bag, which suddenly seemed lighter. “I thought I recognized you!” Mayumi stopped and snapped her fingers a few times. “You’re that Hatake boy!”

“Thanks, Mayumi! We have to be going now!” Obito had the handles of his bag around his wrist, so he grabbed one of Kakashi’s arms and started tugging the boy toward the door. Mayumi sputtered for a moment before she waved at him, calling out a quick goodbye. “I really like Mayumi, but once she starts talking, she never stops,” Obito tried to explain. Outside of the shop, Obito released his hold on Kakashi’s arm and fell in step beside Kakashi.

“How does she know who I am?”

“Um, I don’t know. Why are you asking me? I don’t know.”

“You told her about me?”

“I might have mentioned you, in passing,” Obito said, seeming far too casual about what had happened. Kakashi kept staring at Obito until Obito finally sighed. “I didn’t have many friends,” Obito began, looking up at the blue sky overhead. “Mayumi always needed help with deliveries and unboxing shipment. I used to help her sometimes, before practice. She used to make me breakfast and she’d listen to me. She talks a lot, but she’s actually a great listener too. Anyway,” Obito continued, “I used to complain about you, since you were a bastard.”

“I’m not a bastard anymore?” Kakashi had stopped staring, by that point, so Obito looked over at him and made a so-so motion. Obito remembered the thunderstorm and how it felt seeing Kakashi on the ground, hearing Kakashi calling out to him. Maybe he shouldn’t have stayed. Maybe he shouldn’t have chosen to be there for Kakashi. But it was too late. Obito wasn’t really sure where they stood, but everything had changed. Without Rin, the world had been turned on end, and Obito was still trying to see again.

They were leaving the Uchiha district when Obito first heard the words. A group of four boys stood next to the open gates, all of them wearing Konoha hitai-ate. Only one wore a green chunin vest. They were from the clan, all of them with dark hair and eyes, and they regarded Kakashi and Obito with narrowed eyes. At first, Obito had ignored them, but then the group separated and started following along behind Obito and Kakashi. Obito glanced over at Kakashi, but Kakashi didn’t react, so Obito decided not to react. The chunin in the group whistled at them, so Obito paused. When the boy whistled again, Obito turned to look at them. None of them were looking at Obito; they’d been focusing on Kakashi. Obito started walking again, as Kakashi hadn’t shown signs of stopping.

“Hey, friend killer. Where are you going?”

Obito came to a grinding halt. The three other boys found the words funny, because then Obito heard laughter. Kakashi must have noticed that Obito had stopped, because then Kakashi stopped. Obito slowly eased the handles of the bag from his left wrist and let the bag fall to the ground. When Obito turned, he tried to recognize any of the boys present, but none of them seemed familiar. They were older, so they were from another class altogether. Obito didn’t need to know their names anyway. He didn’t care what their names were, not when the lone chunin opened his mouth again.

“My dad said you murdered your own teammate for power,” the older boy said, his eyes narrowed, mouth set into an ugly scowl. “It’s not enough to steal the sharingan?”

“Tell him, Taro,” another boy spoke, knocking his closed fist against the chunin’s shoulder. Taro glanced back at his friends and then nodded, as if their support somehow inspired him.

Obito started walking toward them. He thought he heard Kakashi calling his name, but he didn’t stop moving. He darted forward and slammed his fist right into Taro’s nose. Taro’s friends scattered, leaving him to his fate, so Obito jumped on the opportunity. When Taro stumbled back, Obito kicked Taro in the stomach and watched the teen fall onto his back. Taro clutched his nose, blood running from between his fingers, down his chin, and onto his chunin vest. Obito jumped on top of him and kept hitting him, punching over and over again, until he felt hands on his arms. Someone was trying to drag him away, trying to pull him off of Taro, so he shoved the person away and went right back to punching. He got three more good hits in before Kakashi finally pulled him off of Taro. Taro rolled over onto his left side, groaning, while Obito fell back onto his butt. Obito had seen red. No one should have known about what had happened. No one should have ever considered Kakashi a thief. Obito had given his eye to Kakashi, and what had happened the night before wasn’t done for power. Obito tried to get to Taro again, but Kakashi got down and wrapped his arms around Obito, restraining him.

“What happened?” Mikoto ran forward and dropped to her knees beside Taro. By that point, Taro had dissolved into sobs, sobs that shook his whole body. “Tell me what happened!” Mikoto looked up at Obito and Kakashi, but neither said anything. It took Obito longer to realize that Kushina was there too. They’d likely seen the entire display. Obito still felt like hitting Taro again; he still felt like wrapping his hands around Taro’s throat and squeezing, squeezing until Taro turned pretty colors, until Taro finally passed on. Taro should have never opened his mouth. And then he remembered his arm, always his arm. 

“My face,” Taro sobbed. Mikoto helped him to a seated position and then she tried to get him to move his hands so that she could see the damage, but Taro wouldn’t listen. He just kept crying about how much it hurt. Kushina motioned for Kakashi to move aside, so Kakashi left Obito.

“What happened, Obito?” Kushina sat down next to him and placed a hand atop his left shoulder. Obito glanced down at his fist, at the blood smeared across his knuckles. He’d lost control again. He didn’t know what to say, except that he was sorry he didn’t hit harder; he was sorry he didn’t do more damage. “Kakashi?” Kushina tried Kakashi next, but Kakashi didn’t seem like he wanted to talk either.

“He called Kakashi a friend killer, so I hit him,” Obito managed to say, his eyes back on Taro. Mikoto had finally moved Taro’s hands out of the way and the teen’s face was a mess. There was blood still gushing from Taro’s nose and his jaw was at a weird angle. Obito must have broken the guy’s nose and jaw, yet he was sorry he didn’t break more. 

“You went too far, Obito,” Mikoto scolded him. “This isn’t how you handle things!” She got to her feet and dragged Taro up, forcing him to stand on his shaking legs. He really wasn’t much of a shinobi. He looked like a good breeze would knock him flat again. “I’m taking him to the hospital,” Mikoto spoke, her eyes on Kushina.

“I’ve got this,” Kushina replied, giving Obito’s left shoulder a light squeeze. When Mikoto and Taro were gone, when it was just Kakashi, Kushina, and Obito, Obito finally relaxed. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “You should have talked to someone. You could have gone to Mikoto or Fugaku. You could have come to me, you know. They’re just words.”

“Now he knows not to say them anymore.” Obito rubbed the back of his left hand on his pants, transferring most of the blood onto the dark fabric. “I’m not sorry,” Obito confessed. He pushed himself up off the ground and went back toward his shopping bag. Kakashi had abandoned his too, all six of them on their sides, clothes sticking out of the tops. Obito didn’t want to see the expression on Kushina’s face, so he looked at Kakashi instead. “You aren’t a friend killer, and you didn’t steal my eye. Don’t let people say those things about you.”

“I don’t need you defending me from bullies, Obito,” Kakashi said, clearly frowning. “You really hurt him.”

“Are you okay?” Kushina stood too and brushed the dirt from her hands. She looked between Obito and Kakashi, quickly inspecting them for any damage. When she didn’t find any, she sighed. “You can’t just beat people up for saying something mean.”

“Why not? You did,” Obito snorted. Kushina rested her hands on her hips, and he knew that he’d said the wrong thing. She started lecturing him about using his words, but he’d started walking away, leaving her to rant at the spot where he once stood. Moments later, Kakashi joined him, hands full with the six bags. “I know you don’t need me defending you, but I’m not going to let people treat you like dirt.”

“You realize you’re in trouble for this, don’t you?”

“What are they going to do, suspend me? Demote me? Send me back to D-ranks? I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Well it was worth it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates for this are going to be slow because the chapters are turning out long and it's taking more planning time than I first thought. You can kiss canon goodbye again. I'm sure you understand why.
> 
> Also, people will see similarities in my stories. I have running themes and it's for amusement. Shows if people pay attention too. I like the idea of things connecting. Like favorite colors. Favorite foods. Place names, if I like them enough. :)


	3. Chapter 3

Obito rolled onto his left side and stared at the wall. The room was dark, his bedroom door shut, so the light over the kitchen sink wouldn't shine into his room. The apartment was quiet, just due to the time of the night -- though he didn't know exactly what time it was. Obito had slept for a few hours without any problems, but that had changed. Rin had invaded his dreams. Obito had recalled the first time he'd met her, and then the dream had gone from there, building a whole world, one where she still existed. Although the dream was nothing but a mixture of memories and possibilities, Obito had loved every second. He hated the fact that he'd woken up, that he couldn't get back to sleep. He'd lost another link to her, something else he couldn't restore. Just as Obito closed his eye, losing himself in the darkness, he heard Kakashi scream. Obito threw his covers off, scrambled out of bed, and raced next door. He slid on the floor, but he grabbed the wall for support. When he threw the door open, he saw Kakashi sitting up in bed, staring down at both palms. The kitchen light gave Obito just enough light to make out the dazed expression on Kakashi's face.

Obito walked into the room and sank to his knees beside Kakashi's futon. Kakashi was slow to raise his head, but he eventually saw Obito. He registered that someone else was in the room with him. Obito had never seen Kakashi without a mask, and the boy still wore it then, as if he knew Obito would invade his private space. “Move over,” Obito said, nudging Kakashi's legs. Kakashi didn't move, so Obito nudged Kakashi's legs again. “Come on.” Kakashi slid over and Obito got beneath the covers. Kakashi didn't ask any questions. He rolled onto his side, his back facing Obito, and Obito remained on his back. “Goodnight.”

Obito woke up a few hours later. He reached out to touch Kakashi's shoulder, thinking someone was in the apartment, but Kakashi wasn't there. Frowning, Obito shoved the covers down off his legs and pushed off the floor. The door to the bathroom was ajar and the faucet was running. Instead of knocking, he pushed the door open further and peered inside. Kakashi was at the sink, so Obito turned to go back to bed, but then he noticed the way Kakashi seemed to shake. 

“Kakashi?”

“I can't get it off.”

Obito walked up to the sink and saw the way Kakashi was scrubbing his hands. His hands were red, the hot water scalding to his skin, yet he kept washing, as if he really couldn't get clean. Obito reached over and turned the water off, then he grabbed a hand towel and started drying Kakashi's hands. They were warm, too warm, and Obito wondered if they hurt. Kakashi stepped back and his back collided with the door, so the door swung closed, shutting them both inside. Kakashi slid down the length of the door until his butt met the floor, then he stared down at his hands again, just as he had hours ago, as if he still saw Rin's blood. Obito left the damp hand towel on the edge of the sink and joined Kakashi on the floor. The seating arrangements were awkward. There wasn’t enough room in the front portion of the bathroom, and they weren’t little kids anymore. Obito sat across from Kakashi and their knees met. It was close, a little too close, but Kakashi didn’t make a move to leave, so Obito wasn’t leaving either. Kakashi didn’t wear his hitai-ate to bed, so Obito got a good look at the vertical scar over Kakashi’s left eye. It reminded Obito a lot of his own scars. They’d been lucky, and that luck had to run out eventually. It ran out all at once, like a flash flood, leaving them with nothing. Obito didn’t know what to say to Kakashi, because Obito didn’t know if he had the strength to carry them both. Anger. Longing. Sadness. Obito felt as if his emotions had swept him away, as if they were a strong current, or maybe just violent winds. 

“It’s over,” Obito eventually said, watching Kakashi’s eyes lift, watching the focus shift from Kakashi’s hands to Obito’s face. They had to start somewhere, and the end seemed like a good starting point. “There’s no more blood. We’re in your apartment. It’s over,” Obito finished, repeating himself.

“I’m sorry.” Obito didn’t think Kakashi knew where to apply the apology, so Obito took it as a blanket apology, as words encompassing everything that had happened, from Kannabi to last night. Kakashi apologized for eleven months of occurrences. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” Kakashi frowned, leaning his head back against the closed door. Obito nudged his right knee against Kakashi’s left knee. There was a moment where Obito could have asked about Kakashi’s nightmare, about the reason Kakashi had scrubbed his hands raw, but he let the moment pass. They weren’t ready yet; Obito wasn’t ready yet.

“I thought someone had broken in. I went to wake you, but you weren’t there,” Obito shrugged. Kakashi arched a brow and Obito looked away, embarrassed of his thought process. No one had a reason to break into the apartment. They were in an area ripe with shinobi, all of them paranoid. No one was going to break into the apartment. “I was half asleep.”

“You talk in your sleep.”

“What did I say?”

“You kept saying ‘please don’t leave me’ over and over again.”

“Did I keep you up?” Obito remembered the cave system again, the underground world Madara inhabited. He remembered dreaming about going home. He’d talked a lot then too. Kakashi shook his head. No, Obito hadn’t kept him awake. Obito yawned, trying to hide his mouth with his hand. Seconds later, Kakashi yawned. “Do you want to try sleeping again? We could at least get out of here. My legs are going to sleep like this.”

Kakashi stood first, and he tugged Obito up from the floor. Obito stretched, his arm raised above his head, toes curling, then he gave each leg a quick shake. When he was done, Obito followed Kakashi back to bed. Feet and hand frozen, Obito was the first one under the blankets, and he tugged most of them to his side of the futon. Kakashi had to pry the blankets from Obito and distribute them evenly, then Kakashi handed over one of his two pillows. Neither of them mentioned the fact that Obito had gone back to sharing Kakashi’s bed.

“Your feet are cold. Stop putting them on my side of the bed,” Kakashi complained, kicking Obito’s left foot. Obito hissed in pain, immediately pulling his feet away from Kakashi.

“Fine. You didn’t have to kick me,” Obito huffed, turning onto his left side. Kakashi was on his back, so Obito had a view of Kakashi’s profile. Obito saw Kakashi’s right eye close, so he thought it was time to go back to sleep. When he closed his eye, once again comfortable, his feet and hand slowly regaining warmth, he saw Rin again. She’d waited for him. Kakashi moved around and Obito opened his eye. They were facing one another, so Obito scooted back, giving them both more room.

“I’m not going to the funeral.” Kakashi still had his eyes closed, so it took Obito a moment to realize that Kakashi had said anything. Obito had thought Kakashi had started drifting off to sleep, but that wasn’t the case. Rin’s funeral was in the morning, and they’d both laid out black clothing to wear. They were supposed to meet up with Minato and Kushina and all four of them were supposed to go together. Minato was the one behind the planning, since Rin’s mother had been killed on a mission three years ago; Rin had never talked about her father, so Obito didn’t know whether the man was alive or dead.

“I’m not going alone,” Obito frowned, watching to see if Kakashi would open his eyes. When that didn’t happen, Obito reached out and poked Kakashi’s left arm. Kakashi opened his right eye. “You have to go. She’d want both of us there.”

“I’m the reason she’s not here anymore. I don’t think she’d want me attending her funeral,” Kakashi said, moving to turn over. Obito reached out and grabbed Kakashi’s right wrist, stopping him from turning over. 

“That’s an excuse and you know it. Rin was never like that. She,” Obito stopped and took a deep breath, “she really cared about you, Kakashi. She had feelings for you.”

“She did?” Kakashi sounded surprised, which annoyed Obito.

“I just said she did, didn’t I?” Obito let go of Kakashi’s wrist and rolled onto his back. He stared up at the light shining across the ceiling. When they’d gone to bed, they’d left the bedroom door ajar, so some of the kitchen light crept into the dark room. Obito used to have a nightlight, embarrassing as it was to admit, so the light didn’t bother him. Staring at the light was better than staring at Kakashi. Obito knew all about the crush Rin had on Kakashi. Obito had spent years trying to ignore the way Rin looked at Kakashi; Obito had spent years trying to get Rin to look at him the way he looked at her, the way she looked at Kakashi. Sometimes, he’d thought that the only reason she befriended him was because she had felt sorry for him. “So will you go now?”

“Why didn’t she say something?”

“Why, did you have feelings for her?” Obito didn’t want the answer, but he still found himself waiting, holding his breath. He never could have competed with Kakashi; he still couldn’t compete with Kakashi. But he’d tried. He didn’t know if he still tried, or if he’d finally given up. A lot had happened. Obito hadn’t stopped to consider their rivalry, not since the moment he’d smashed his way through that boulder and took off into the night to save Kakashi, to save Rin. Their rivalry had pushed Obito, giving him the fire he needed to keep going. “Kakashi?”

“No.” Kakashi moved around and Obito had to tug on the blankets to keep from losing them. When Kakashi settled, they were fine again. Obito had released the breath he’d been holding. His world continued turning. He didn’t know what he would have done if Kakashi had said _yes_. Maybe he would have asked why Kakashi and Rin hadn’t gotten together. Maybe he would have hit Kakashi. The possibilities made no difference then, because Kakashi hadn’t had feelings for Rin. “I know how you felt about her.”

“You must think I’m pathetic,” Obito frowned, tangling his fingers in the sheets. Kakashi didn’t say anything, not at first, so Obito’s initial anger quickly faded, replaced by shame.

“I don’t think you’re pathetic. I think you should have told her those roses were for her.” Kakashi folded his arms atop the sheets, right over his chest, and it was his turn to stare up at the light crawling across the ceiling. Obito thought back to the time he’d bought roses for Rin. He’d been so excited, so unbelievably nervous, and then he’d surrendered to his nerves. He didn’t think anyone had connected the dots, linking the flowers to his confession, but he should have known Kakashi would have noticed.

“Do you think she knew?”

“Rin was a smart girl. What do you think?”

After that, they both fell asleep again. In the morning, Obito was the first one to wake up, so he slowly crawled out of bed. He checked on Kakashi, making sure the boy was still sound asleep, then he tiptoed out of the room. In the kitchen, Obito started opening the overhead cupboards, but he didn’t find a lot of food. He found one cup of instant ramen, a box of crackers, and the moldy remains of a loaf of bread. The two lower cabinets had paper towels in one cabinet and cleaning supplies in the other. Obito closed the last cupboard and moved to the fridge, which proved just as helpful as the kitchen cabinets. The fridge had the leftover takeout they’d had for dinner and a carton of milk, which still had a few days left before it expired, judging by the date and the smell. Obito looked down at his white, short-sleeved t-shirt and his grey sweatpants. He looked presentable. Obito went back to Kakashi’s bedroom and started rooting around in Kakashi’s pants pockets. He managed to find some ryo, so he went to put on his sandals, planning on grabbing some food for breakfast.

“Obito! I heard you were back in the village! It is good to see your face again!”

“Keep it down, Gai.” Gai stopped jogging in place and focused on the apartment building Obito had just exited. When Gai pointed toward the third floor, Obito waved his hand up and down, trying to put a stop to the oncoming shouting. “I’m just staying here for a few days,” Obito said, getting a grin and a thumbs up in response. “What are you doing here?”

“I always take a morning jog. It helps me start my day,” Gai said, flashing another smile. Obito swore that the man’s teeth sparkled in the morning light. It was too early to deal with Gai. Obito was still bitter about their fight during his first chunin exams, then there was the fact that Gai had made jonin. What was so great about Gai anyway? Obito looked the boy over, but he only saw a lot of spandex and a big mouth. “I heard about your teammate,” Gai frowned, all traces of his happy expression gone. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“I need to get breakfast.” Obito didn’t accept the words. He stepped around Gai and continued down the street, ignoring Gai when the boy ran up beside him. Sighing, Obito turned to look at the boy. “Thank you, but I really just need to get breakfast, and then I’m heading back.”

“I know just the place. Do you like eggs?”

“Yes, actually,” Obito answered, slow to say the words. Gai found his smile again, and he raced down the road, leaving Obito in the dust. Obito coughed and waved the dust away from his face, but he did hurry after the boy. He found Gai standing outside of a small restaurant. The place only had three stools, and all three seats were occupied. Gai stopped conversing with the woman behind the counter and offered one of the small menus to Obito. The restaurant mainly served breakfast foods. Obito thought about getting something basic, like fish, rice, and miso, but Gai had mentioned eggs. The woman behind the counter waited for him to order, and he chose tamagoyaki. The last time he’d had an omelet, he’d burnt it and had to throw most of it away.

“I come here every morning,” Gai spoke, filling the silence. The cook, most likely the owner, had already started oiling the pan for the eggs, so Obito just watched her work. “I like the pickled apricots.” Gai nodded toward a dish that a patron was working on, so Obito took a look. The man ate the apricots before Obito saw much more than the color. “Today, I was going to challenge my eternal rival to a swimming contest, but I thought it would be best if I asked another time.”

“Yeah, don’t do it today,” Obito frowned. He didn’t ask why Gai wanted to challenge Kakashi to anything. The last he’d heard, Gai kept following Kakashi around, spouting nonsense about youth. But that had been months ago. Maybe they’d become friends. “Are you going to the funeral?”

“Yes,” Gai nodded. By that point, one omelet was finished and boxed up, while the pan was oiled for the second. Obito didn’t think Gai and Rin had been close, but Obito saw it as supporting those left behind. If Gai considered himself Kakashi’s friend, then it made sense for Gai to attend the funeral. Then again, Rin had been friends with a lot of people. She had been outgoing, right to the end. “Would you like help with your bag?” Obito looked at the bag the cook was handing him. The two takeout containers caused the paper bag to bulge. 

“Are we going to keep talking?”

“Would you rather not?”

“Fine, but let’s hurry. I don’t want to waste time with,” Obito began. He didn’t get to finish, because Gai had grabbed the bag of takeout and raced off, back in the direction of Kakashi’s apartment. Obito paid for the food and started jogging after the blur of green. Obito really didn’t like Gai. He didn’t want to start out with a morning jog, but it seemed that fate had other plans. When he reached the apartment building, he glared at Gai, but Gai either didn’t notice or didn’t care. The teen was grinning again, his teeth shining, and that soured Obito’s mood. Obito snatched the offered bag from Gai’s hand and stalked into the apartment building. “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder. 

Obito let himself back into the apartment and slid off his sandals. Before he checked on Kakashi, he took the bag of takeout to the kitchen counter and sat it down. He took out the two containers, sat them on the counter, grabbed the bag, and folded it up for the garbage. The containers went to the low table, along with chopsticks, which he found in a kitchen drawer. Then, with the food ready to eat, he went to rouse Kakashi. Kakashi had managed to roll himself up in the blankets, so the only thing showing was his hair and one foot. Obito nudged Kakashi’s foot a few times and the blankets moved. Kakashi poked his head out, his right eye squinted against the light entering the room. 

“I got breakfast. Get up.” Obito didn’t wait for Kakashi to free himself from the blanket cocoon. He turned and went back into the kitchen to prepare tea. Oddly enough, Kakashi had a lot of tea, but no real food. He lived and thrived on takeout, when he could actually cook, which amazed Obito. Kakashi crossed from the bedroom into the bathroom, grunting to let Obito know he was awake and up. When Kakashi emerged, Obito was pouring two cups of green tea. “I only have one hand. Grab your cup,” Obito instructed him, leaving one of the cups on the counter.

“What did you get?”

“Tamagoyaki.”

“I don’t want tea with eggs. Don’t you want milk?” Kakashi went back to the kitchen to deposit his cup on the counter. He grabbed a glass from one of the cabinets and filled it with milk. Obito stopped and stared down at the tea. He asked himself if he really wanted tea with eggs. The answer was no. “I got it,” Kakashi said, already going for another glass. Kakashi took both glasses to the table, took the tea from Obito, and left it with the other cup in the kitchen.

“I ran into Gai this morning. You’re friends with him, aren’t you?”

“Why do you say it like that?”

“He’s weird!”

“You’re still angry about the chunin exams,” Kakashi finished. Obito stuffed a piece of egg into his mouth, since he didn't want to agree with Kakashi. While Obito looked down at his food, Kakashi ate half of his own eggs. Obito looked up to find that he'd missed a view of Kakashi's face, so he refused to look away again. “What's wrong?”

“Go ahead and eat,” Obito encouraged him. Obito quickly looked down to grab a piece of egg, but when he looked back at Kakashi, Kakashi's food was gone and the teen was busy chewing. He'd even managed to drink his milk. “Let me see your face.”

“No.”

“Just a quick look.”

“No.” Obito opened his mouth to say something else, but Kakashi was already getting to his feet. Obito plucked another piece of egg from his container and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing with a little more force than necessary. “Hurry up. I'm going to get ready. We don't want to be late.” Kakashi disappeared into his bedroom, so Obito quickly shoveled the rest of his eggs into his mouth. He polished off his glass of milk, trying to get every last drop, then he put the empty glass in the container and carried both into the kitchen. “Do you need help?”

“Let me see.” Obito went toward his room. Obito had taken a shower the night before, just like Kakashi, so he went straight for his clothes. He managed to get his sweats down, shimmying around to get the pants off his hips, and then shoving at either side until they fell, but the hard part was putting on the black pants for the funeral. He had to keep adjusting the pants, pulling on one side, then the other, until he got the pants up to his waist. Obito got stuck pulling his shirt on. He got his head through the top, but he couldn’t get his hand into the sleeve. “Yeah, I’m stuck,” Obito sighed. He didn’t wait for Kakashi to come to him. He left his room and went to knock on Kakashi’s closed door. “I’m coming in.”

“How do you get in these positions?” Kakashi had taken one look at Obito and rolled his eyes. He unbunched the shirt and helped Obito with his right arm first. Once that side was finished, Kakashi mumbled the same question again.

“I guess I’m just really bad at this,” Obito said, forcing a laugh. Kakashi had to pull on part of the shirt, opening the bottom up so that Obito could slip his hand up and into the sleeve. “Are you really going to wear your mask to the funeral?”

“I’m not taking the mask off, Obito.” Kakashi poked Obito’s stomach and Obito giggled, something that made them both freeze. Slowly, Kakashi reached out to do it again, but Obito swatted his hand away. “Come on,” Kakashi said, motioning toward the bedroom door. Kakashi already had his hitai-ate on, slanted to cover his left eye, something that had Obito thinking about his own hitai-ate. It was long gone. He didn’t even know if he’d get another, considering he’d been deemed KIA, and then because of his physical limitations. “We still need to pick up the flowers,” Kakashi reminded Obito, heading right for the front door.

“I know. We went over this last night. We’ll get the flowers, then we’ll go to sensei’s house. The funeral starts at nine.” Obito paused in the kitchen to check the wall clock. “We have forty minutes. We’ll make it in time.” Kakashi already had his sandals on and he’d opened the door to head out into the hallway. Obito slid his sandals on, locked the door, and closed it behind him. The two headed toward the stairs that led to the ground floor, with Kakashi leading and Obito following.

The walk to the flower shop was a quiet one. Obito had been to funerals before, but he’d been too young to remember much of anything about them. He remembered visiting his parents’ graves, burning incense and leaving flowers, but he hadn’t done that in a while. His grandmother had been the one to keep up on maintaining the traditions, while Obito had immersed himself in being a shinobi. He needed to visit his grandmother’s grave. He made a mental note to visit it, since they were heading in that direction. On the walk to the flower shop, Mrs. Aoyama saw them and waved to them. She saw their clothing and waved them over to her. She gave them two pieces of lemon candy, one for each of them, and told them she was very sorry to hear about their friend. She gave them ryo toward the flowers, so Kakashi added the money to the money he’d already had on hand. 

“She really likes you,” Kakashi commented, after they’d walked away. Obito made a noncommittal sound and shrugged his shoulders. Mrs. Aoyama had always been nice to Obito, and he’d always been nice to her. At first, he’d only been nice because she gave him candy, but that had been so long ago. She was a nice woman. His grandmother used to play Go with her, after Obito had introduced them. “Which flowers did you pick?”

“White and lavender chrysanthemums. I didn’t want to get all white,” Obito explained, rubbing at the back of his neck. Kakashi didn’t respond, so Obito began doubting himself. “Should we just get the white? I’ve never done this before. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m stupid for getting purple.”

“Stop worrying.” Kakashi reached the door to the shop first, so he opened it and held it open for Obito. The inside of the shop was cool, especially compared to the building heat of the day. There was only one person in the shop, Yamanaka Inoichi, so the two boys went up to the front counter. “We’re here to pick up the flowers for Nohara.”

“White and lavender chrysanthemums,” Inoichi said, nodding. “I remember. I think you’ll like them.” He left them to wait while he went to grab the flowers. Obito walked around, admiring the displays, while Kakashi waited at the counter. Obito found a display of red roses and he was transported back to when he’d first tried confessing his feelings to Rin. Obito glanced at Kakashi, making sure the boy wasn’t looking, then he opened the refrigerated display and smelled the roses. They smelled just like he remembered. “Here we go.” Obito quickly left the roses and went to collect the wrapped flowers, leaving Kakashi’s hands open to pay Inoichi.

“They look great,” Obito complimented, smiling at the flowers. Kakashi continued counting out the money, but he nodded once, agreeing with Obito. “Did you have any other orders for Nohara?”

“Just for the display. The Hokage ordered white chrysanthemums,” Inoichi said, appearing thoughtful. Obito waited for him to offer condolences, to say anything about the black attire, but Inoichi simply took the payment. As Kakashi went for the door, Inoichi called Obito’s name. “It’s good to see you again, Obito. Take care of yourselves.”

“Thanks, Mr. Yamanaka.” Obito turned away and left the store, jogging to catch up to Kakashi. He held out the white chrysanthemums for Kakashi, while he kept the lavender ones to himself. The white mums were for Minato and Kushina to present, while the lavender mums were from Kakashi and him. “Are you alright, Kakashi?”

“I’m fine,” he lied, looking over at the flowers. “The lavender was a good choice.” He took the white mums from Obito, since Obito had started crushing them. Obito hadn’t been able to carry both of them very well, so he didn’t complain. Around them, people were finally up and moving, ready to start another day. Most of the people were civilians, going from shop to shop, adding bags to their full arms. Obito saw an elderly man juggling two large grocery bags and went to help him, but Kakashi grabbed Obito by the back of his shirt and tugged him along. “We don’t have time.”

“We had plenty of time,” Obito huffed, pulling away from Kakashi. He straightened out his shirt, as if patting out wrinkles, and returned to his spot beside his friend. They didn’t talk until they were outside of Minato and Kushina’s home, and then it was only Kakashi telling Obito to ring the doorbell. There was a shout from inside, followed by hurried footsteps, and then the door opened, revealing a disheveled Minato. “Is everything okay, sensei?”

“I told you to be ready twenty minutes ago, you know!” Kushina shouted from somewhere inside the home, then she poked her head around the corner and offered Kakashi and Obito a smile. “We’re almost ready. Minato, go finish getting dressed. Hurry up,” Kushina said, clapping her hands at him. Obito looked down to see that Minato still had pajama bottoms on. “The flowers look beautiful,” Kushina grinned, taking the mums Kakashi offered her. “You two got her lavender ones?”

“I told you I’d look stupid,” Obito muttered to Kakashi.

“I told you to stop worrying,” Kakashi retorted.

“She would have loved them,” Kushina said, ruffling Obito’s hair. She took another look at him, then fixed his hair for him. He didn’t want to show up at the funeral with messy hair, looking as if he’d just rolled out of bed. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No,” Kakashi answered, apparently speaking for Obito as well. Obito opened his mouth to argue, but Minato was already jogging down the stairs, black pants replacing the blue-and-white striped pajamas bottoms. 

“Are we all ready?” Minato looked at all three of them, then he started herding them toward the door, where they all put their sandals on and headed back into the warmth of the morning sun. It was too bright and cheery for a funeral, yet Obito found it fitting that the sun should shine, just for Rin. “We’ll go to the service and then we’ll go to the gravesite,” Minato explained, leading them toward the small shrine. People stopped to offer condolences, which Minato was forced to graciously accept, so that set them back by ten minutes. They were some of the last people to arrive.

The shrine wasn’t very big, so it was crowded inside. Minato led them to the very front, right before the small altar, where they spent the next hour listening to the sermons. Halfway through, Obito glanced around to see that some of his former classmates had their heads bowed, their eyes wet with unshed tears. Rin had a lot of friends, friends beyond Kakashi and himself, but he hadn’t thought she’d really touched others so much. Gai had left his green behind, exchanging the color for all black, and he stared at the altar with an unreadable expression. Genma and Raido were in the middle of the room, both of their expressions solemn. And then, in the back, there were former instructors and older shinobi. Beside Obito, Kakashi focused on the single photograph on the altar. There was a whole display of white chrysanthemums behind the altar, the green and white like a rising tide, all of the flowers in varying stages of bloom. Minato had really put a lot of thought into the ceremony, which wasn’t surprising. Obito knew that Minato cared about them, just as they cared about him. They were more than comrades. Obito thought of Minato as family, the same with Kushina. Kakashi was a little more complicated than that.

Near the end of the service, after the sermons, Minato went to speak a few words about Rin. He talked about how Rin was the glue for their team, how she’d been the one to keep them all in line. Rin truly was the one connecting them all. Obito didn’t think he would have worked with Kakashi, if it weren’t for Rin. Their team dynamics would have suffered. Rin was someone very special to all of them. Minato closed with the story of the day Team Minato disbanded, right after Kannabi. He said she’d gone to work at the hospital full time and that she’d left lasting impressions on all of her patients, both shinobi and civilian. Obito hadn’t known about Rin working full-time at the hospital. She’d been an amazing medic, so he believed the words. Minato thanked everyone for coming, and then people lingered to offer condolences and pay their respects. Obito had so many people approaching him that he lost count. All of the names and faces blurred together. With all of the people, trapped in the center of the crowd, he found himself falling apart. He looked at the altar, taking in the bright smile Rin wore in her photograph, and then he started hyperventilating.

“Obito,” Kushina called, having seen the beginning of his meltdown. 

Kushina was struggling to get through the people, trying to get to his side, but Kakashi got there first. Kakashi grabbed Obito’s arm and started dragging him from the people. Everyone stared at them, some with shock and some with pity; they all judged Obito. He couldn’t keep it together. He couldn’t last through the funeral service. He’d been so close to succeeding! Being trapped in the small shrine, surrounded by all of those people, the words of the speakers still reverberating off the walls and echoing in his ears, he’d found himself spiraling. Outside of the shrine, Obito pulled away from Kakashi and fell to his knees. He pressed his hand over his chest and tried to focus on his breathing. He could do it. He was fine. The black spots appeared, as if they belonged there.

“Is he alright?” Kushina had finally made it out, though Minato wasn’t with her. He must have been inside, trying to be there for all of them. She placed her hand on Obito’s left shoulder and squeezed. “It’s okay,” she kept repeating. “What happened?”

“He started hyperventilating,” Kakashi answered, shrugging. Obito was slowly getting his breathing under control, so his shoulders sagged. His whole body seemed to sigh, all of his tension slowly disappearing. Obito looked at Kushina first, then at Kakashi. He murmured his thanks and Kakashi nodded, simply acknowledging the words. “Do you want to go back inside?” Kakashi had the lavender flowers Obito had dropped, picking them up somewhere along the way. They needed to leave them at Rin's gravesite.

“No,” Obito mumbled, shaking his head back and forth. “I can’t go back in there.”

“Why don’t you two go on ahead and Minato and I will meet you there?” Kushina offered Obito a sad smile, then she ruffled his hair for a second time that day. He reached up to fix his hair, though he didn’t say anything in reply. It was Kakashi that nodded, Kakashi that grabbed Obito’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “We shouldn’t take too long. Do you know where you’re going?”

“We’ll find it,” Kakashi said, turning toward the direction of the gravesite. They had a little bit of a walk to get to Rin’s grave. Rin was next to her mother, something that Minato had made possible. It was just another thing he’d done for Rin, just another thing he’d done for them all. As they walked, Kakashi didn’t try to get Obito to talk, so Obito didn’t force any words. Obito was still back at the shrine, struggling to bring himself out of a panic attack, struggling to win the fight against black spots and heavy breathing. “Do you want to split up and look for her grave?”

“Yeah, we can do that,” Obito agreed. Kakashi handed him the lavender chrysanthemums and they separated, Kakashi going one way and Obito going the other. The cemetery itself was for shinobi, though no Uchiha were buried within it. The Uchiha clan had its own shrine and its own cemetery, so Obito would have to make another stop to see his parents and his grandparents. “Did you find it?” Obito wasn’t having any luck.

“Yeah, it’s over here,” Kakashi eventually replied, waving a hand.

Obito turned around and started walking over to the gravesite. The grave didn’t have any grass on it, so it was a new grave. Rin had been cremated, as was customary, so her ashes were buried there, right below them. Obito placed the flowers near the grave marker. He ran his hand over the stone, feeling the words and numbers etched onto it. His hand lingered there. Obito thought he’d cry, that he’d spend the majority of the day being a sobbing mess, but he hadn’t shed a single tear. He didn’t have any tears left. Just the thought of crying left him exhausted. Maybe they’d cried enough, or maybe the tears would kick in later, unexpectedly. Obito looked at Kakashi, but he couldn’t see any tears there either. They only had the flowers and the empty space where Rin used to be, somewhere between them, nestled in their shadows. She’d been an important part of his life. All he had left was a grave marker and the engraved words and numbers.

“Should we say something?” Obito looked at Kakashi again, waiting for him to say something, to answer Obito’s question. When Kakashi didn’t, Obito nudged Kakashi’s side.

“I think everything was said,” Kakashi frowned, taking his turn to touch the grave marker. Obito nodded, even though Kakashi couldn’t see him nodding. Obito rearranged the flowers so that they leaned more on the marker, covering up the date of Rin’s death. She still lived on, when he did that. She still existed, with those flowers hiding the date. “If you want to say something, you should say something.”

“You’ll make fun of me,” Obito said, also frowning. Kakashi rolled his eyes, though he didn’t disagree. Obito let the silence settle between them, still thinking on Kakashi’s words. When he finally decided to say something, he didn’t know where to start. “Hey,” he began, his voice breaking, “it’s me, Obito. I really miss you. I wish you could have known I was still alive. I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to you again. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I know you’d tell me to stop apologizing.” Obito looked away from the stone, his eye taking in the way the sun hit the other grave markers. So many others had died. So many others would die. “I really liked you a lot. I thought that I had more time to tell you. I thought I had more time with you. I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to leave me. If you could come back,” Obito said, finding the tears, feeling them rolling down his cheek, “if you just come back, everything will be okay again. Please come back, Rin.”

Kakashi didn’t have to, but he touched Obito’s left shoulder, his hand a warmth Obito so desperately needed. Obito raised his hand to try and scrub the tears away, but he couldn’t get them to stop. Where he’d once doubted his ability to cry, he doubted his ability to stop. Everything hurt. He felt as if he were trapped beneath the rocks all over again; he felt as if he were watching her walk away. Obito couldn’t finish what he’d wanted to say. He’d wanted to let her go, to tell her that she shouldn’t wait on him anymore, but he just couldn’t. He wanted her to be there, waiting for him, until death finally claimed him too. He missed her with every part of himself, from the top of his head to the toes on his feet. Kakashi cleared his throat, and Obito tried forcing his shoulders to stop shaking. He told himself he was okay again.

“It’s me,” Kakashi said, his hand still on Obito’s shoulder. “It’s not the same without you. I’m sorry I hurt you. I never meant to. If I could, I’d take it back. But I can’t.” Kakashi stared down at her grave marker, having the courage to stare at her name, having the courage to see those numbers. Obito sniffed, trying to focus on the words Kakashi said. “We’ll be okay,” Kakashi began, “so don’t worry about us. We’ll figure something out. Just wait on us. We’re not ready to go yet, but wait. You were always looking out for us, and I know you’re still doing it right now.” Kakashi seemed as if he had nothing else to say, so Obito was ready to say something. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Obito echoed, agreeing with the words. Kakashi let his hand fall from Obito’s shoulder and the two of them just stood there, staring down at the grave. Obito had managed to stop the tears, so he rubbed the back of his hand along his cheek, removing the last of the salty tears. Kakashi pulled a tissue from his pocket and offered it to Obito, so Obito dabbed at his eye and wiped his nose, then he tucked the used tissue into his pants pocket. Moments later, Minato and Kushina arrived. Minato carried the white chrysanthemums. 

“Sorry it took us so long,” Minato apologized. Kushina took the white mums from him and placed them next to the lavender flowers. Rin deserved the flowers. She’d earned so much more than flowers though. She deserved a peaceful afterlife. They stayed there long enough for Kushina to remind Rin to take care of herself, long enough for Kushina to promise to look out for Kakashi and Obito, just like Rin used to. Kushina promised that Team Minato would pull together again and make it through the tough times, and they’d do it for Rin. And then Minato invited Kakashi and Obito out for tea, and they left those beautiful flowers behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! This took forever though. I've finally decided to scrap about twenty chapters and take the story in a different direction. This was an original chapter, since I thought it was good enough to keep. I haven't given up on this! I was reluctant to part with the other chapters, even though I knew I needed to change a lot, so that kept me from updating. I don't have a beta to kick me into gear and run ideas with, so it's just me being stubborn and lazy (lol). Anyway! More later.


	4. Chapter 4

Obito no longer wanted to visit his grandmother’s grave, not after the tears he’d already shed for Rin, but he knew it was time. Outside of the Uchiha district, Obito stared at all of the buildings, at all of the people going from place to place, trickling in and out of the gates. Kakashi had offered to go with Obito, so he stood beside Obito, looking at the same scene. Obito thought about Taro, and he thought about the blood on his knuckles, how it felt to punch Taro over and over again. While he and Kakashi were out with Minato and Kushina, Kushina had informed Obito that Fugaku wanted to speak to him, so Obito had to make another stop to speak with the clan head. Kakashi started walking, so Obito followed after him. They went a different route, so they didn’t pass Mayumi’s shop. When Kakashi slowed, so that they were walking side-by-side, Obito stopped dragging his feet. He couldn’t avoid the grave site, just as he couldn’t avoid Fugaku. He wasn’t going to let something, or someone, in Fugaku’s case, intimidate him. He’d been through too much to back down. After his little pep talk, he gave a firm nod, one just for himself.

At first, no one seemed to care about Obito and Kakashi. Non-clan members had walked the streets before, so it wasn’t something new; however, clan members still weren’t happy about outsiders. They acted as if they were xenophobic, something Obito had never liked, nor supported. He’d been in the minority when it came to associating with outsiders. The clan wasn’t actively discriminating, at least not in the sense that they displayed obvious prejudice, but it was often discussed at clan meetings, which Obito had started attending as soon as he was made chunin. He’d never spoken at one of the meetings; he’d been too young and inexperienced in clan politics and etiquette. He wondered if he’d ever get the chance to try again. The farther they walked, the more attention they garnered. Kakashi seemed content ignoring the stares and the muttered words, but Obito wasn’t. Obito started out staring at others, trying his best to meet them head on, which worked for some of the people, but not all of them. Obito began recognizing faces, and he noticed the suspicion written there. They wondered what he was doing back when he’d been deemed KIA, when he returned with horrible scars, no right arm, and no left eye. The mutters grew louder, with all of the people questioning one another, trying to find the answers without asking Obito. Obito clenched his fist, and Kakashi reached out and slapped Obito’s fist, silently communicating that Obito needed to calm down. 

“I can hear them talking about us,” Obito mumbled. Kakashi nodded, having heard Obito’s words. “They could just talk to me, instead of gossiping. I don’t look that bad, do I?” Obito touched his empty right sleeve, then the right side of his face. There were other clan members missing limbs. He’d once met a woman missing one of her legs, so he knew he was right. He wondered if the attention was more the fact that he’d given his eye to a non-clan member. He heard Taro’s name, then he heard Kakashi’s name. When he heard Rin’s name, Obito started searching for the one speaking. He couldn’t pinpoint where the name had come from, where Kakashi’s name had come from, so he stopped walking and started judging everyone. Kakashi had to walk back and coax him into moving again.

“Don’t let them get to you,” Kakashi said, voice low. Obito muttered about how everyone could walk off a short pier, which seemed to amuse Kakashi. Obito didn’t know what he would have done, had the tables been turned, had he been the one seeing someone like himself returning. Eleven months was a long time for a disappearing act. He came to the conclusion that he would be cautious, if nothing else. “Have you thought about moving back here?”

“Where else would I live? This is where clan members stay,” Obito replied, focusing on the conversation rather than on the staring. They were almost to the cemetery, so the crowds of people had thinned out. Obito frowned, “I could get an apartment in one of the complexes. Maybe I could check with real estate. Do you care if we stop there?”

“I don't care. Is it on the way?” Obito nodded, so Kakashi shrugged. “We can stop there.”

A few people were scattered around the cemetery, all of them cleaning graves and burning incense. After tea, Obito had stopped to buy some rose-scented incense, as his grandmother had loved roses. Obito went to find his parents’ graves first, which were with his grandmother's, so he cleared the leaves from the graves and lit the incense. He lowered his head, enjoying the silence, just taking in the sound of the breeze rattling the leaves. Kakashi had waited near the entrance to the cemetery, so Obito had a moment alone.

“I'm not doing well,” Obito sighed. “I'm sorry I didn't bring you any flowers, Mom, Dad, Grandma. I'll get you some next time. I bought enough chrysanthemums for today. We just buried Rin. I know you liked her, Grandma.” Obito shifted on his feet. The empty sleeve of his shirt swayed in the light breeze. He didn't know what else to say. “Kakashi is trying to help me out. You liked him too. Mom, Dad, you would have liked him. He's not as bad as I thought, so you were right, Grandma. I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for him, so I guess I owe him.” He paused, “I can't do this. I love you guys. I need to go.”

When Obito caught up with Kakashi, Obito found the same group of shinobi harassing him. Angry, Obito stomped forward, intent on punching Taro again, but an adult approached them. His hair was slicked back and he wore standard shinobi clothing and a vest. His hitai-ate was on his upper arm, like a band, and Obito guessed there was a fan on the back of the shirt. The guy was clearly a clan member, and he looked a lot like Taro; in fact, Obito guessed that it was Taro's father. Kakashi caught Obito's arm before Obito could rush past and attack the group of teens. Taro's father stepped in front of the group and frowned at Obito, disgust on his face. Obito stopped fighting against Kakashi's hold, but he didn't back down.

“So you're the one who attacked my son,” the man said, still looking down his nose at Obito. “My son says you attacked him for no reason.”

“Your son is a bastard and a liar!” Obito ripped his arm out of Kakashi's grasp and pointed at Taro, who had backed away. Obito thought that was a good idea, because he still wanted to punch Taro again. “I want him to apologize to my friend.”

“Apologize to him? Son of the White Fang, eh? First your family name is ruined, and now you intend to smear the Uchiha name as well,” the man frowned again, staring at Kakashi. Obito saw a subtle shift in Kakashi's expression, and that only pushed Obito further. Obito walked up to the man and glared at him. “You gave your eye to a stranger. That's _our_ dojutsu.”

“He's not a stranger! He's my friend. And he should have it. _I_ gave it to him,” Obito said, jabbing a thumb in Kakashi's direction. “I bet you don't have an active sharingan. I bet your lousy son doesn't either! And because of that, you're envious. I went through hell. He went through hell. I'm not going to stand here and let you talk about my friend this way. So you have two choices. You can take your son and walk away, or I can kick both of your asses.”

“That won't be necessary.” Fugaku stood there, a bento in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. “Toshio, I am disappointed in you. You’re picking fights with children now?”

“He beat up my son. What are you going to do about this? You told me you'd address it,” Toshio said, that same frown in place. Fugaku shook his head.

“Go home. I know what I'm doing,” Fugaku dismissed them, turning his back to them. Toshio tensed, but he grabbed his son's arm and started walking away, all the while muttering about thievery. Fugaku motioned for Obito and Kakashi to follow him, and the three headed toward the clan head's home. “You really shouldn't pick fights with your elders.”

“That guy was a jerk. He deserved it,” Obito insisted, expression sour. “What are you going to do about it though? Are you going to take his side? You heard what he said!”

“This can wait until we're in my office,” Fugaku stated, clearly ending the conversation. Behind him, Obito and Kakashi remained quiet. People treated Fugaku the way others treated Minato. They stopped to wave and ask about Itachi, but Fugaku didn't stop long. When they got to Fugaku's home, Fugaku led them inside. They left their sandals by the door and followed him past rooms to a small office in the back of the home. The office opened up to give a view of the side yard. Kakashi and Obito sat on one side of the desk, while Fugaku sat on the other, and then they waited.

“I want a formal apology from Taro for what he said to Kakashi,” Obito said, beginning the dialogue. Fugaku seemed to consider it, but Obito wasn't as good at reading the man's expression. Fugaku had a way of maintaining an air of indifference. Obito only knew when the man was angry, and everyone knew that. 

“He wants a formal apology for what you did to his son, Taro. You shattered his nose and broke his jaw. I think you owe him an apology,” Fugaku said, hands resting atop his thighs. Obito hated sitting in seiza, but it wasn't exactly an informal meeting, so he ignored the uncomfortable arrangement.

“I'm not apologizing.” Obito slowly shook his head from side to side.

“Just apologize,” Kakashi cut in, causing both to look at him. Fugaku seemed to notice him for the first time, but Kakashi didn't look bothered. Obito took a deep breath, before he shook his head again. “He’s not going to leave you alone. You’re going to live here again. Remember?”

“I'm not apologizing to that guy. Taro called you a friend killer and said you stole the sharingan,” Obito said, clenching and unclenching his fist. Kakashi looked down at the fist, but he remained quiet. On the other side of the desk, Fugaku had also seen Obito’s movements.

“We should talk about the sharingan, Obito. It's long overdue, don't you think, Kakashi?” Fugaku turned his head to focus his full attention on Kakashi. It was Kakashi’s turn to straighten up, to try and appear like an adult, despite the fact that he was only fourteen. Obito wanted to say something, but Fugaku held up a hand to silence him. Obito bit on his tongue until he tasted blood. “Now that Obito is back in Konoha, I think you should return the eye, don’t you?”

“I think I should too,” Kakashi agreed. Obito looked between the two, his mouth ajar. “It wasn’t my intention to keep it from Obito. We haven’t found the time to discuss it.”

“Because it’s not happening. I’m not taking it back,” Obito cut in, causing the other two to stare at him. Fugaku frowned then, something that made Obito uneasy, to say the least. Kakashi’s expression was harder to see, with the mask on his face. Obito shifted around, feeling the beginning of pins and needles in his legs. He’d never been good in seiza. “It’s my eye and I can do what I want with it. I want Kakashi to keep it.”

“He’s not an Uchiha. He shouldn’t have had the eye in the first place. Do you know what could happen, if that eye falls into the wrong hands? You’re too young to remember the horrors of war and the real threat of dojutsu theft. Men have been killed for far less. If you won’t take the eye back, then it should be disposed of,” Fugaku decided, as if he truly had a say in the matter. Obito wanted to reach across the desk and dump that hot coffee right on Fugaku’s crotch, but he remained where he was, silently seething.

“Kakashi won’t let it fall into the wrong hands, will you, Kakashi?” Obito glanced in Kakashi’s direction and saw the silent agreement there. Fugaku’s eyes narrowed a bit, but he kept them on Obito. “He’s a loyal Konoha shinobi, and he’s a jonin. He can handle himself,” Obito insisted. “If the clan weren’t against outsiders, this wouldn’t be a problem.”

“The sharingan is closely guarded for a reason. You know how dangerous it can be, and how much it means to this clan. Or has your time away clouded your judgment,” Fugaku said, his question a rhetorical one.

“Then I can vouch for him. I trust him. He wouldn’t do anything to harm this clan, or its name,” Obito frowned, no longer caring how Kakashi responded. The boy had gone quiet, letting Fugaku and Obito go back and forth. Obito had to admit that the thought of Kakashi returning the eye made him feel something he wasn’t quite sure he understood. It didn’t sit well. He knew that much. He wasn’t done fighting; he refused to let Fugaku use intimidation tactics. Obito understood his rights.

“We both know about his upbringing,” Fugaku said, his frown lines bringing out his opinion on the matter. He finally glanced at Kakashi again. 

“That’s it,” Obito said, rising from seiza. Fugaku arched a brow at him, as if saying that standing wasn’t intimidating at all. Obito wasn’t about to lecture a man with the pins and needles acting as distractions. “I think Kakashi’s dad was brave, and I would have done the same thing. In fact, I did! I refused to give up on my team! Kakashi has had a hard life, and he doesn’t need to have it thrown in his face every time he’s getting somewhere. Or has your ego clouded your judgment.” Fugaku looked furious then, and Obito almost backpedaled, but one look at Kakashi’s stunned expression gave Obito the push he needed to continue. “You don’t get to tell me what to do with my sharingan.”

“You sound like Minato. He said something similar when I spoke to him about the eye,” Fugaku said, reigning his temper in. Obito was still standing, riding on the high leftover from his impassioned speech. “I can have you removed from the clan for insubordination.”

“Obito,” Kakashi spoke, drawing Obito’s attention from Fugaku. “This is your clan,” Kakashi reminded him. Obito understood. Kakashi didn’t want Obito saying something or doing something he’d go on to regret, so Obito took a few moments to gather himself. Fugaku allowed him that much.

“I loved this clan with everything I had. When clansmen teased me and bullied me for how I acted or what I said or how I performed throughout my years at the academy, I forgave them. I was different. I’ve always been different. And if being different means I lack a place in this clan, then maybe you should remove me. I’m doing the right thing. I’m standing up for what I believe in. I know, with everything that I am, that Kakashi will guard this sharingan. He won’t let me down. He wouldn’t let this clan down.” Obito had finally regained the feeling in his legs, as if the pins and needles had been waiting for the right moment to disappear. Across the desk, Fugaku looked between Kakashi and Obito. Both boys met his eyes, knowing better than to look away. Just when Obito had given up, Fugaku reached out and took a drink of his coffee. 

“In two days, there will be a clan meeting. It starts at sundown. I’ll put it to a vote,” Fugaku decided, putting his coffee cup back on the desk. Obito looked over at Kakashi, then back at Fugaku.

“Can Kakashi come?”

“Just you, Obito.” Fugaku began looking over the papers he had on his desk, then he opened his bento. When he looked up again, he frowned. “Go,” he said, waving both boys toward the door. Obito didn’t need to be told twice. He turned, grabbed Kakashi’s hand, and tugged the boy to his feet. The two of them calmly walked from the room, but they started hurrying toward the front door. Neither of them spoke until they were well outside of the home.

“Did you mean all of that?”

“No, Kakashi, I lied.”

“I’m serious.”

“Of course I meant all of it. You won’t mess up. I know you won’t,” Obito said, staring straight ahead. They were nearing the gates, by that point. They’d already passed the real estate office, and Obito didn’t feel like doubling back. He wanted to get out of the district as soon as possible. Beside him, Kakashi had lowered his eyes to the ground. “I think it’s stupid that people keep bringing up your dad, like he did something so terrible by putting lives before the mission. He was a good dad, right?”

“Yeah, he was.” Kakashi’s response was quiet, so quiet that Obito might have missed it, if he weren’t listening closely. Kakashi tucked his hands into the pockets of his pants and finally raised his eyes from the ground. Before they even made it to the gate, Taro and Toshiro made an appearance. Obito opened his mouth to say something, but Kakashi slapped a palm over his mouth to silence him. They walked past one another, all four of them staring one another down. “Did you really want to start another fight?” Kakashi had waited until he and Obito were outside of the district to ask.

“I would have won.”

“That’s not the point.”

“So you agree that I would have won?”

“Yes, I think you would have won,” Kakashi replied, glancing up at the sky. Clouds had covered the open expanse, blocking out the afternoon sunlight. The clouds were large and grey, obviously heavy with rain. Obito didn’t think it would be much longer before the rain finally started, and it would likely last into the night. “Didn’t you want to check for real estate?”

“I might not be in the clan anymore. I’ll just stay with you. It’s okay, right?” Obito stopped, so Kakashi stopped too. Obito felt his lips twitch for a frown, but Kakashi chuckled, and the expression disappeared. “What’s so funny?” 

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Kakashi said, turning to continue walking. Obito jogged to catch up to him. For a second, Obito didn’t think he’d get an answer. Kakashi looked up at the sky again, and Obito felt the first raindrop hit his forehead. The two quickened their pace. “You decided you’d stay, and then you asked if it was okay. You should have asked first.”

“What difference does it make now? You said yes,” Obito grinned. He nudged his fist at Kakashi's upper right arm. Around them, the rain had picked up. The whole area smelled fresh, like rain mixing with the ground. There was a word for it, but Obito couldn't think of it, not then. “Do you want to get something for lunch? I'm hungry.”

“Is that your way of saying you want me to buy you lunch?” Kakashi laughed again and Obito blushed, turning his attention away from Kakashi's face. “What do you want to eat?”

“Oyakodon. Do you know how to make it? I can probably figure it out.” Obito saw an awning and both boys ducked beneath it, hiding themselves from the pouring rain. It was the rainy season, so rain and thunderstorms shouldn't have been surprising. Obito wished he'd brought one of his cloaks. He brushed excess water from his hair.

“I know how to make it,” Kakashi assured him. Obito pointed to one of the grocery stores down the street. The food carts had all been covered with tarps, all of the produce gone, so they only had actual shops to browse. There wasn't a lot that went into oyakodon, but they needed quite a few ingredients, if Obito remembered right. Obito counted down from three. On zero, both of them ran for the store.

Inside the store, Obito grabbed one of the baskets and the two went for the refrigerated section in the back of the store. Along the way, they picked up a bag of jasmine rice. Kakashi did most of the shopping, while Obito handled the basket of items. They managed to get chicken, for the oyakodon, and shrimp for tempura, even though neither actually loved the dish. Halfway through shopping, Obito started throwing desserts into the basket, including dorayaki, taiyaki, and imagawayaki. When they hit the freezer section, Obito went for mochi ice cream, but Kakashi grabbed his hand and pulled it out of the freezer. 

“You've been sneaking food into the basket,” Kakashi said, trying to herd Obito toward the end of the aisle. Obito disappeared in a swirl of leaves and reappeared by the freezer again. He plucked a container from the freezer and dropped it into the basket. “How do you intend to pay for half of the store you bought?”

“I'll owe you one?”

“I think so.”

“I can repay you, once sensei gets my money straightened out,” Obito offered, already turning toward another display of food. Kakashi put his hands on Obito's shoulders and steered the boy away from the food. “Hey! I wanted some of that!”

“We have enough food. The basket is overflowing,” Kakashi sighed, still pushing Obito along. Obito glanced over his shoulder at the boxes of cereal, but he didn't fight to go back. He let Kakashi lead him along to the front register, where they waited behind two other people.

“That's the guy,” someone whispered. “He attacked that kid.”

“Obito, don't,” Kakashi said, pointing toward the line that had moved. Obito stopped looking for the source of the words and tried focusing on the line instead. The whispered conversation continued until Obito and Kakashi reached the front of the line. By that point, Obito sat the basket down on the counter and let the employee take care of ringing up the items, while Kakashi went to start bagging. Obito was the one to count out the money and accept the change, and the two left without Obito ever finding the people whispering. “You're quiet,” Kakashi said, his face hidden by two large bags. Obito had insisted on carrying the third. “Is it the people at the store?”

“I shouldn't be surprised that they knew, since Taro knew about that night,” Obito said, referring to the night Rin died. Kakashi hummed, just a quick noise to show he was listening. “Wait. Who's that outside of your apartment building? Oh, it's Asuma.”

“Hm, I wonder what he wants.” Kakashi kept his lazy pace, until they reached Asuma, then he and Obito came to a stop. Asuma took one last drag off his cigarette, then pinched the cherry tip, putting it out. “You never visit.”

“I was at the housewarming party,” Asuma pointed out, a small smile on his face. He reached into his vest and pulled out a small scroll, which he then handed to Kakashi. “From the Hokage. We should catch up. I'll let you know when the others are getting together for drinks.” Asuma gave a mock salute with two fingers, then he turned and walked away. “Nice seeing you, Obito,” he called back.

“Yeah,” Obito said, his voice not loud enough to carry to Asuma. Obito followed Kakashi into the building, then up the stairs to the apartment. When they got inside, they took the groceries to the kitchen counter and Kakashi opened the scroll. Obito tried peering over Kakashi's shoulder, but Kakashi moved the scroll away. “Is it a mission?”

“Yeah, I have to report in half an hour. I should be able to get the food started for you,” Kakashi said, already putting the scroll away. He started unpacking groceries, so Obito helped.

“So I guess I'll just stay here then,” Obito mumbled, putting his ice cream away. He didn't think Kakashi should have been assigned a mission. They'd been at Rin's funeral earlier, and everyone needed some time to wind down. And knowing that Kakashi was out there, knowing he wasn't going with Kakashi, left Obito feeling anxious. What if something happened? What if Kirigakure shinobi appeared, wanting revenge? What if Kakashi needed him and he wasn't there? Obito had been holding onto the carton of eggs, so Kakashi took the carton from him.

“It'll be fine, Obito. It's not my first mission.”

“I know that! But what if you need me and I'm not there?”

“I'll be fine. It's only for a few days. You'll be busy with Orochimaru and your clan. You won't even notice I'm gone,” Kakashi said, already preparing the ingredients for the dish. Obito finished unpacking the rest of the bags, but he didn't say anything. He knew he'd notice Kakashi wasn't there. He wasn't a small child. That kind of logic didn't work on him anymore, not since his parents tried using it and never returned. “You're frowning at the bread.”

“Maybe I don't like it,” Obito replied, setting the loaf down on the kitchen counter, out of the way of Kakashi's cutting board. “Are you sure you're ready for a mission?”

“I need to get out of here and clear my head. I requested a mission when we were at the hospital.” Kakashi was chopping vegetables, so Obito went to grab the skillet for the chicken. He mumbled about how he didn’t agree, but Kakashi either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. Obito assumed it was the latter. “You’re going to cut the chicken?”

“How hard can it be?” Obito had to wait for Kakashi to help wash his hand, then they both focused on their own jobs. Obito took the chicken out of the fridge, grabbed a knife, and sliced open the package. He’d seen his grandmother cooking a lot, so he copied her motions when he started cutting the chicken. When that didn’t work, he tried a general sawing motion. “What are you looking at? I’ve got it.” Kakashi finished chopping the onion and went to Obito’s side. He took the knife from Obito’s hands and picked up where Obito had left off. “I can cook my own meal,” Obito said, glaring at the floor.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t. I don’t have time to wait for you to cut the chicken. I have to leave, remember?”

“I know that!”

“Start on the rice.” Kakashi did most of the work for the recipe, while Obito just rinsed and boiled the rice. The lack of space meant that they were practically on top of one another. Kakashi had elbowed Obito enough that Obito had begun stepping on Kakashi’s feet in retaliation. “I have to go. Whisk the eggs, pour them into the skillet,” Kakashi started instructing, already moving away from the burners. “Cover it and turn the heat down. Make sure the eggs are done. Then just put it over the rice.”

“I think I can figure it out,” Obito assured him, taking the large spoon from him. Obito started going over what Kakashi had said, repeating the words over and over in his head. When Kakashi returned to the kitchen, he was fully dressed in his shinobi attire, weapons pouches in place. Obito decided he didn’t like being left behind. If things had been different, if he’d made it to Rin and Kakashi in time, maybe Team Minato would have been sent on the mission. As it was, Kakashi went alone. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Shouldn’t I say that to you?” Kakashi grabbed the second bowl Obito had set out and put it back into the cabinet. Obito didn’t need the second bowl for rice. Kakashi wasn’t returning. “Don’t burn down the apartment. I’ll see you.”

“Yeah,” Obito said, echoing his response to Asuma.

He thought of a lot of things he could have said to Kakashi, but none of the words came out. Instead, he listened to the sound of the door clicking into place. He was alone again. Beyond the sound of the simmering food was the sound of the pouring rain. He still had steps to complete with the food, so he did as Kakashi had instructed. When the food was finished, he moved the skillet from the burner and stared down at the chicken and egg concoction. It felt wrong to eat it, when he hadn’t really helped with preparing it. Frowning, he set the spoon aside and left the kitchen, telling himself that the food needed to cool before he bothered trying to eat it. He went to the windows leading out onto the fire escape and opened one of them. Sitting down on the windowsill, he stared out at the end of the alley, where people had their heads ducked low, the hoods of their cloaks raised up in an attempt to keep dry. The rain reminded Obito of Rin, but a lot of things reminded him of Rin. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this in a comment, but not everyone reads the comments. I'll be updating this story once a week, for right now. When/If that changes, I'll leave another note about the update schedule! Thank you to everyone leaving kudos and comments. ❤


	5. Chapter 5

Orochimaru’s lab was located near the intelligence division’s building. The exterior of the building was grey, though some of the front of the building had been worn away, revealing darker stone beneath. There was a sign outside, right on the front of the building, that announced it as the research division, a lesser known division riddled with far too much red tape and classified information. Minato had made an appointment for Obito, so Obito hadn’t seen Orochimaru in person; in fact, the only time Obito had ever met Orochimaru, Obito had been nine, and Orochimaru had gone to speak to the academy class about summoning contracts. The man was intimidating, to say the least. None of the students in Obito’s class had seemed bothered by him though; all of the kids had been eager to ask questions. Orochimaru was a hero, and everyone liked heroes. Obito couldn’t help but think of Kushina. She didn’t like Orochimaru, and Obito considered her to be a very good judge of character. Outside of the building, Obito pulled the appointment card from his pants pocket. He was ten minutes early, for once. He didn’t think showing up late would get him any points with the man. No one really appreciated waiting games.

“Um, I’m looking for Orochimaru?” Obito had entered into the building and approached the front desk, which was in the back of the main hall. There was one person there, a short woman with light blue hair. She stared at him for a moment before grabbing a clipboard. “What’s this?”

“Sign in. You’re a visitor,” the woman said, popping her gum. She was too young to be working in the research division, so he assumed she just manned the front desk. Obito signed his name, making him number four on the visitor’s log, and handed the clipboard back to the woman. She reached over and pressed a call button on her phone. “Orochimaru, you have a visitor. Uchiha Obito.”

“Send him back,” came the reply. 

She wrinkled her nose at the request, but she pressed another button, one built into the desk. The door to the left buzzed, signaling that she’d unlocked the door. She made a sweeping motion toward the door, so Obito started walking to it. “Where do I go from here?” Obito pointed toward the door and he heard the lock click back into place. Smiling sheepishly, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

“You’re looking for lab three. It’s the last one on the right,” she said, once again pressing the button to unlock the glass door. 

Obito nodded and quietly thanked her. Once he got past the door, he was faced with a long, white hallway. There were glass doors down both sides of the hall, but each one had a number on the door. As he walked down the hallway, he paused to look inside of the rooms. Some of them were dark, meaning they weren’t currently in use, but one had a scientist looking through a large microscope. Obito couldn’t tell what the man was seeing, so he didn’t stay there very long. The last lab, right at the end of the hallway, was the largest of them. Instead of one glass door, there were two, and there was a call box on the wall. Obito tried to open the door, but it was locked, of course, so he hit the call button. He didn’t say anything into the box, but the doors clicked, signaling that they were open, so he went inside. The large room reminded Obito of the hospital. There were two desks, one to the right of the door and one in the back of the room. The one near the door had file folders stacked on both sides, not a single one out of place. Orochimaru sat at the desk in the back, so Obito bypassed the first desk. The lab itself was cool, and there were countertops covered with all sorts of beakers and test tubes. There were two large tubes running from the floor up toward the ceiling. Both of them were empty, save for the liquid inside of them. They were large enough to fit a human body inside, so Obito didn’t want to know their use.

“I’m Obito,” Obito introduced himself, quickly bowing. Orochimaru looked up from his papers and smiled, though the smile seemed more predatory than warm. Obito straightened up and Orochimaru stood. “What are we working on today?”

“_We_?” Orochimaru chuckled and shook his head. “I need blood and tissue samples.” Orochimaru led Obito to a single chair over by one of the counters. Obito sat down and offered his left arm, using the armrest to keep himself still. Orochimaru started opening and closing cabinets, retrieving needles and a scalpel. Obito wasn't a squeamish person, but he didn't want the scalpel near him. Orochimaru must have read the expression on Obito's face, because he laughed again. “You're a trained killer and you're afraid of a scalpel?”

“You're going to be cutting a piece of flesh off my arm,” Obito said, face blank. Orochimaru picked up the scalpel from the small tray he'd placed it on, then he turned to Obito. “Aren't you going to numb the area?”

“Now why would I do that?” Despite saying that, Orochimaru retrieved a vial and filled a syringe. First, he wiped alcohol over a site on Obito's arm, then he jabbed the needle into Obito's right arm, near the end, where the arm had stopped regenerating. He quickly swiped the scalpel over the skin. Obito twitched, then he watched the blood rise to the surface. Orochimaru grabbed a ball of cotton and pressed it down over the wound, then he went to retrieve a proper bandage. When Orochimaru moved to drawing blood, Obito turned his head away. He'd had enough sharp objects for the day.

“Now what?” Obito had two bandages in place, one larger than the other. “Are you going to get me a prosthetic?”

“I'm going to run a few tests,” Orochimaru answered, walking over to a workstation. He had the tissue sample, which he divided again, placing a portion between two glass slides. Obito watched him work. “I don't see the point of offering you a prosthetic, when you have the cells that you do in that arm.”

“So I'm not getting an arm?”

“Obito,” he said, not moving from the microscope, “I'm watching cells divide and multiply. Any new arm can act as a replacement. We could probably grow one in a lab setting. Let me explain it in a way even you could understand. You're a rare species.”

“Because of the arm?”

“You don't even know what you have, do you, silly boy?” Orochimaru glanced over at Obito, then stepped aside. He motioned for Obito to take a look through the microscope. When Obito did, he saw a lot of movement. “That would be cells identical to the first Hokage’s. They're coexisting, where they might have overwhelmed your body, destroyed homeostasis, and killed you.” Obito stepped back from the microscope. He had no idea that he could have died from Madara's attempt to save him. He was lucky. There was no other explanation. 

“Could I still die from it?”

“No. In fact, the regenerative abilities will heal you, should you be injured. I bet the area I took the tissue sample from has already healed, or is in the process of healing right now,” Orochimaru smiled, that same glint in his eye. “Who saved you?”

“I don't know his name,” Obito lied. He didn't know if he should share the information with Orochimaru or not. There really was something off about the guy. He made Obito uneasy. If Obito mentioned Madara, then what was stopping Orochimaru from investigating? Clearly, Orochimaru had recognized the cells, which meant he had worked with them. How many others had been treated with the cells? If Obito could have died, how many others had actually died? Was Orochimaru experimenting on people? Obito had too many unanswered questions. “He looked like a regular old man.”

“Come back around this time tomorrow. I might want another tissue sample.” 

Orochimaru dismissed him without even saying goodbye. More than a little offended, Obito found his own way out of the lab. He decided he'd show up again, if only to know more about his abilities. Mokuton tied into those cells, after all. Orochimaru could answer Obito's questions. Obito knew he could always pretend to be stupid to get more information. As it was, Orochimaru already assumed Obito was beneath him. Orochimaru acted a lot like Toshiro, in that way. Obito had to sign out at the front desk. He'd been inside for almost three hours, so it was lunchtime. Kakashi had been gone for twenty-four hours. Obito had been trying to take his mind off the mystery mission, but the empty apartment didn't help. Just thinking about the quiet space made Obito stop. He stopped so suddenly that someone ran right into his back. 

“Watch where you're going!”

“Don't stop in the middle of the road!”

“Hey, aren't you that Aiko girl?”

“It's _Anko_.”

She scowled at him, so he didn't really want to apologize for forgetting her name. She'd been at the funeral, somewhere closer to the back. He'd seen her talking with Rin a few times, but while Rin was outgoing, Anko just seemed standoffish. Obito could tell when she looked at his empty right sleeve, even though she tried to take a quick look. “Yeah, my arm's gone,” he said, poking the sleeve. She took another look. 

“I'm sorry,” she admitted, though she didn't seem so sincere with the deep frown on her face. “So you're retired now? I guess you are, since you can't fight with one arm.”

“I only need one good arm to kick someone's ass,” Obito smirked. She laughed and he found himself laughing too. “Did you make chunin yet?”

“I'm in the upcoming exams. I'll make it this time.” Her eyes looked bright with determination, so Obito saw himself in her. She was younger than him, if he remembered correctly, but not too much younger. “Orochimaru-sensei says it's going to be my year.”

“He's your sensei?” Obito looked at her closely, as if trying to find something off about her, but she seemed like any other girl. She'd mentioned her sensei with such pride. Maybe if Anko saw something in him, Obito could too.

“Yep!”

“He seems okay,” Obito lied. Anko puffed up her cheeks and Obito quickly waved his hand from side to side. “I mean he seems great!”

“That's what I thought you said,” she smiled sweetly. Obito finally noticed the bento she carried. It had a white snake carved into the wooden top. “I'm trying to get the last ingredient for sensei's lunch. Dango!”

“He likes dango?”

“We both do! Don't you?”

“Yeah! I love dango.” Obito didn't know what else to say, so the two of them bathed in the awkward atmosphere, until someone else bumped into Obito. That caused Anko to yell for the person to watch where he was going. “I'd better go.”

“Me too. It was nice seeing you, Obito. Maybe you can buy me dango sometime! Bye!” She took off running and Obito blinked a few times, focused on the spot where she once stood. He didn't think he'd take a little girl out for dango. What would they even talk about? Obito turned and headed in the direction of the Uchiha district. 

Unlike the past couple of days, the sky was clear, promising nothing but direct sunlight for the remainder of the day. It was the rainy season in Konoha, so one good day was to be celebrated; however, the humidity and heat of the day quickly made being outside uncomfortable. Obito half-expected to find Taro by the gates, still trying to impress his stupid friends, but there was a small family there instead. Obito smiled at them and the two little girls waved at him. The parents didn't know how to respond to his expression, so Obito kept walking. He said he'd stay with Kakashi, but he slowed down as he passed the real estate office. And then that led to another detour. Obito went to see his old house. The house itself wasn't very big. He'd moved in with his paternal grandmother when he was five, right after his father died. His father, Souji, had died on a scouting mission to Kumogakure. Four months prior, Obito had lost his mother. Her mission had been a long-term infiltration mission to the Land of Water. Her body hadn't been recovered. Only one of her team made it back alive, and he'd quietly retired. Obito remembered his father sobbing, when they'd received the news. Seeing his grandmother's house reminded him of his sad childhood. Even though his grandmother had done her best to be there for him, she hadn't been his mother and father. He'd still loved her though, very much. 

“Can I help you?” A woman poked her head out of the front door. She seemed genuinely interested in him. She had a babbling toddler at her hip, the kid having fistfuls of his mother's hair. “You've been standing there for a while,” she trailed off. 

“I used to live here. That's all. Sorry to bother you,” Obito said, a sad smile in place. He took one last look at the home and turned to walk away. 

“Obito? Is that your name?” The woman opened the door a little further, so Obito turned back to face her. “We have a box of stuff in the attic with your name on it. We never got around to throwing it out. Would you like to come and get it? You'd be helping us out by taking it. I can offer you some tea,” the woman smiled, untangling her son's fingers from her dark hair. Obito hesitated, but he eventually followed her into the home. “I'm Isuzu, and this big boy is Hatsuo,” Isuzu said, giving the toddler a little bounce. 

“Nice to meet you. Hello there, Hatsuo,” Obito grinned, shaking the boy's outstretched hand. “If it's a big box, I might have to come back when I have help.”

“I could help you. My auntie is a couple of doors down. Let me drop Hatsuo off. Can I trust you not to steal anything?” She asked it jokingly, but he froze. “Wow. Relax. I'm kidding,” she giggled. While she grabbed a diaper bag and went to drop her son off, Obito stayed in the front room. 

Everything looked the same, yet everything looked completely different. The furniture was a wine color, not brown. The bookcases were gone, replaced by paintings. The paintings themselves were beautiful, both of them watercolors of nature scenes. Obito moved over to one to further examine the brush strokes, and that's where Isuzu found him. She led him further into the home, then stopped in the second floor hallway. There was a cord dangling down from the ceiling, so she pulled, opening up the entrance to the attic and the wooden stairs leading up. Where the attic had been dusty and mostly bare, Isuzu had boxes upon boxes of belongings. One of the boxes, in the far corner, had his name on it in his grandmother's handwriting. 

“It's a mixture of things,” Isuzu explained, opening the top of the box. Obito stared down at his cracked goggles. His baby book and baby blanket were in there, along with the quilt his grandmother had made for him. His initials were on the bottom right corner. “It's heavy because of the weapons and weights at the bottom. Let me get it over to the stairs and I can hand it down to you, okay?” While he went downstairs, she shoved the box over to the stairs. She lowered the box down and Obito caught it, cradling it to his chest and using one thigh to try and keep it from falling. 

“Thanks for keeping this,” Obito said, watching her descend the stairs and then close up the attic entrance. “I didn't think I'd be back here again.”

“It looks like a higher power had other plans,” Isuzu smiled again, taking the heavy box from him. “Lead the way.” Halfway through their walk, Obito tried to get Isuzu to give him the heavy box, but she insisted she could handle carrying the box. Sweat gathered at her brow and she had to keep adjusting her hold, but she didn't drop the box, nor did she complain. “Is this you?”

“Yeah, are you sure I can't help you?” Obito opened the door to the apartment building and Isuzu maneuvered the box through the door. “It's on the third floor,” Obito frowned, pointing toward the stairs. “Maybe we can each take a side?”

“I've got it. I'm used to carrying boxes now. I had to move myself in. My husband was on border patrol,” Isuzu said, a small laugh following. “Third floor,” she repeated. “That's not too bad.”

“Thanks,” Obito said, walking behind her, in case she stumbled. Once they'd climbed the stairs, Obito took the lead again and led her down the hall to the apartment. He had to unlock the door, which took a second, and then he opened it up for Isuzu. Again, she maneuvered the box through. “You can drop it anywhere.”

“Nope. Where do you want it?”

“Back here then. In my room,” Obito said. They'd slipped off their sandals, so Obito led her back to his bedroom, passing Kakashi's closed door. As pathetic as it sounded, Obito still stayed in Kakashi's room. He told himself Kakashi had a more comfortable futon, which was true. “Sorry about the mess.” Obito darted forward and started picking up clothes and cups from around his futon. 

“I have three brothers. I know how messy a boy's room can get. This place is perfect,” Isuzu laughed. She lowered the box down, leaving it beside Obito's open closet. “I thought you'd be staying in clan housing. Are you looking? There's a one-bedroom in my old building. I can call the landlord.”

“I'm staying with a friend, for now. I think it's better that way,” Obito said, avoiding her eyes. “Can I get you something to drink? I have milk, orange juice, tea,” Obito listed off, counting on his fingers.

“I'll take tea. Thanks!” As Obito made them tea, Isuzu sat at the low table and talked to him. “It's going to be a hot day, and the humidity is awful. It's cool in here though. Do you use fans for the bedrooms?”

“Yeah, there's one in both rooms. I open the windows at night and put one in to bring in cooler air. I noticed the air conditioner gets a little overworked, if I don't,” Obito said, taking her cup of tea in first, then going back for his own. He sat across from her and the two enjoyed the air conditioning. “You're married?”

“I know. I'm eighteen. I promise I'm old enough,” Isuzu said, smiling at the way Obito choked on his tea. While Obito coughed, Isuzu continued. “I married young because I found the one. His name is Hachirou.”

“Were you a shinobi too?”

“I was. I might return to active duty sometime, but not until Hatsuo is old enough. I'd worry about him too much.” Isuzu stared off in thought, so Obito wondered if he'd asked the wrong question. “I'm going to take a wild guess and say you were a shinobi too.”

“I had to lose my arm somehow,” Obito nodded. “I hope I can get to the point where I can resume work, but I don't know.” He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Isuzu placed her cup back on the table. 

“Well, I would practice one-handed seals then. It's not impossible. You'll need very good chakra control though. If you ever want some help, come find me. I was an academy instructor for a year and my specialty is chakra control.”

“You don't even know me.”

“We're clan. That's all I need to know. You seem like a good kid, Obito,” Isuzu said, finishing off her tea. He'd made iced tea for the both of them, at her request. She'd said it was too hot for hot tea. “I should go. Hatsuo gets fussy around nap time.”

“I can walk you back?”

“No, that's too much to ask. I can handle walking home.”

“I'll walk you back.”

As he walked Isuzu to her aunt's to pick up Hatsuo, they made smalltalk about clan politics. Isuzu said she'd been attending clan meetings since she was fourteen, and she still found them lacking. She said the meetings were tedious, and the council did nothing but argue back and forth. The only thing they agreed upon was the fact that Fugaku wasn't ready to take over as clan head. Obito didn't know that. Then again, Fugaku's father had been a jerk, so it shouldn't have been a surprise. Isuzu invited him in for more tea and conversation, but he declined. From Isuzu's, he took his time walking through the streets. Surprisingly, no one stopped to stare; no one whispered about his appearance. He became another person, someone without Kannabi, someone with Rin. He pretended to be someone else all the way up until he entered Mayumi's shop.

“Obito! Perfect timing. I just finished the yukata. Do you want to see them?” Mayumi left the register and hurried into the backroom. Obito found it amusing that Mayumi got so excited over clothing and alterations. She'd always been that way, even when she was younger and just helping her mother out in the shop. It was why he liked her though. She oozed positivity. “Ta-dah!” Mayumi brought out Kakashi's yukata, the bright tiger still on the bottom. “Where's your friend? I wanted to show him too.”

“Mission,” Obito frowned, shaking his head. He looked at the length of the yukata, trying to see where she'd altered the fabric, but he couldn't tell. “It looks great. Was it any trouble?”

“No, it was easy. I know what I'm doing,” Mayumi winked, “unlike that Yamanaka across the village. She wouldn't know what to do with herself.” Mayumi didn't like competition, specifically the competition she began with Yamanaka Inoue. The woman was young and beautiful, and she could manage any job, or so the rumors said. The location of Mayumi’s shop really cut down her variety of customers. Obito couldn’t imagine many outsiders going into the district for clothing, despite the quality of the clothes. Obito released the bottom hem of the yukata, his arm dropping back to his side. “Let me wrap them up for you. You can come on back, if you want.”

Mayumi slid open the door and turned on more of the lights, revealing all of the boxes and clothing racks. There was a desk near the backdoor. The top was covered with various fabric samples and color swatches. Mayumi did a lot of work out of her home, which happened to be above the shop. There was a staircase in the back of the shop that led up to the flat. That was where Mayumi used to treat him to breakfast. They hadn’t done that in many months, even before his Kannabi bridge mission. While Mayumi grabbed some thick paper and began folding the yukata, Obito went over to the desk and took a seat. He tipped his head back and stared up at the ceiling, a small sigh following. “Do you need any help with shipment?”

“So you have nothing better to do,” Mayumi laughed, finishing wrapping one of the yukata. She used thick string to tie off the wrapping and tested out the weight. Nodding to herself, she moved to the second yukata. “I could use a model for a furisode job.” The clan still celebrated coming of age, so it wasn’t a surprise that someone had requested a furisode, but Obito didn’t want to wear something that had been restricted to young women. He didn’t want someone seeing him wearing one, to be perfectly clear. “You used to do it all of the time for me. Now that you know a lot of my kimono are for young women, you won’t help me?” 

Obito blushed, “I don’t want people thinking I’m a crossdresser.” Mayumi laughed at him again, tying off the second package with the same thick string. She walked the two packages over to the desk and dropped them atop the samples and swatches. “Aren’t I a little too big for it?”

“You’re not fat, Obito. Did someone tell you that you’re fat? I’m not above hitting a child,” Mayumi stated, completely serious. Obito laughed, thinking she was kidding, but she didn’t join in, so his laughter quickly faded. He shifted in the chair, sinking lower. “I made fresh anpan.”

“Fine,” Obito reluctantly agreed. Mayumi clapped her hands together and spun around to face one of the many racks. She pulled one large garment bag from the rack and folded it over her right arm. The bag was longer than the others, so if she hadn’t rested the bag over her arm, the bag would have touched the ground. “Does it get the uchiwa on the back?”

“Not this one. It’s part of a hand-me-down from her mother, and her mother isn’t from the clan. Come on. Let’s go to my upstairs office. I have pins and measuring tape there,” Mayumi said, trying to shoo him to the backdoor. Obito hurried to his feet and led the way out of the shop.

“Don’t you want to put up a closed sign?”

“Why? I’m not closed.”

“What if people want help and you aren’t there?”

“Then they can ring the bell. It sounds in my office. I think things through,” she said. Mayumi reached up and flicked the back of his left ear. Obito stopped at the top of the stairs and allowed Mayumi to open the front door to her apartment. The door opened into the kitchen, which had once confused Obito, so they had to leave their shoes in the genkan there and continue through the kitchen to the dining room, which served as a dining room and her office. “Can you smell the anpan?” Mayumi teased him, but he still smelled the air again. The whole house smelled like freshly baked bread.

“Why do you bake so much? It’s just you,” Obito said, taking in the messy room. There were small notes all over one wall, the small pieces of paper held in place by pins. There were a lot more than Obito remembered, but he hadn’t been upstairs in a long time.

“I like to spoil my nieces and nephew. You know I don’t have children of my own,” Mayumi reminded him. She hung the garment bag on a clothing rack she had stuffed in a corner of the room, then pointed to a door further down the hall. “Take off everything but your underwear.”

“Uh, I have a lot of trouble dressing and undressing,” Obito said, voice quiet. He tugged on his left ear to avoid fidgeting. Mayumi frowned, then she placed her hands on his shoulders and started steering him toward the bathroom. “Wait! I can figure it out! Stop!”

“It’s okay to admit when you need help, Obito. I’ll be right outside.” Mayumi finally released his shoulders and he walked into the bathroom. “Bring your clothes out with you and you can set them on the table,” she instructed.

Obito nodded, then he closed the door on her. She kept talking to him through the door, telling him about the young woman requesting the furisode. Apparently, the woman would be turning twenty in a month and a half, and Mayumi couldn’t find the time to finish the fitting, since the woman was also a kunoichi. Obito knew the clan was all about traditions, but he didn’t think a kunoichi would bother with a coming-of-age tradition. The woman’s coming-of-age ceremony should have occured when she became a genin. Obito got his pants off, but he got caught in his shirt, just like he had the night before, and even just that morning. Grabbing his pants from the floor, Obito opened the bathroom door. Mayumi perked up, as if he’d caught her dozing off, which really wouldn’t surprise him, as she had odd hours. 

“Hold your arm up and I’ll pull it up and off.” Mayumi was right there, helping him remove his shirt. And just as she’d said, she got the shirt off in one smooth motion. Obito went to dump his clothes on the small table, but Mayumi snatched the clothing from him and began folding it up, giving him the stink eye the whole time. “Now stand here,” she said, motioning to a small stool, “and I’ll get the hadajuban.” There wasn’t much to the white fabric. The single piece was worn underneath the furisode, but it looked big, too big. When Obito went to ask about it, Mayumi held up a finger. “I know. This also needs sizing. The hand-me-down fabric is limited, so I need more than a rough idea before I start creating the kimono. It’s easier for me to pin this when someone is wearing it. It’ll be difficult with just one arm, but we’ll make it work,” she smiled.

“What does the actual fabric look like?” Instead of answering, Mayumi went to a wardrobe along the wall and opened both of its doors wide. There was a bolt of fabric inside that had been dyed blue. “So it’s going to be all blue?”

“You have a lot of questions today. And hold still!” She stopped to scold him, then closed the wardrobe. “I have to finish with the embroidery. That will take the rest of the time. She requested too much, but she’s a family friend, and I couldn’t say no. She reminds me a lot of myself. We both broke arranged marriages to take our lives in other directions,” Mayumi said, staring off in thought. She started moving, after that. 

“I didn’t know you had an arranged marriage,” Obito frowned, twitching when a pin stabbed his arm. Mayumi gave him a look that kept him from complaining. She kept measuring, adjusting, and pinning, all the while mumbling about shorter lengths and tighter waists. “Mayumi?”

“I come from a family of seamstresses. My profession was decided before I was born. And so was my husband. His name is Gou. He’s from a family of silk merchants. He lives about four blocks over now, with my sister and their four kids.” Mayumi paused in her pinning and smoothed out the fabric along Obito’s shoulder. When she did, the fabric bubbled, so she pinned a little more. “I love my job, I love everything about fashion, and I’m very good at what I do. I decided I didn’t want someone deciding my future anymore, so I called off the engagement. I was disowned. Until my nephew, Hideyoshi, was seven, he didn’t know he had an aunt. None of my nieces had ever heard of me.” Mayumi finally stopped moving and stared up into Obito’s face. “Sometimes, we have to be brave and chase the things we want most in the world. I valued my freedom, so I chased it. I don’t regret it.”

“There are still arranged marriages?”

“Yes, it’s still common among the Uchiha clan. It’s just as common among the Hyuga clan, I’d assume. The other clans relaxed their stances years ago, but some clans still value traditions that should have died out a long time ago. Our clan is one of them.”

“Don’t you want a family though?” Obito frowned and she went back to pinning again. He didn’t think she’d respond, so he let the question go. When she’d finished with his arm, she focused on the bottom of the hadajuban, taking it up and pinning around it, measuring and adjusting. How she knew the measurements she needed was beyond him. Mayumi didn’t have any notes on hand with her customer’s numbers.

“That’s not a possibility for me,” Mayumi said, when Obito thought the conversation had died. Obito wanted to ask why it wasn’t a possibility. He wanted to tell her that she just had to be brave again and chase after what she wanted. Mayumi hadn’t looked at him when she’d spoken, and she didn’t look at him when she spoke again. “I’m gay, Obito.”

“Are you sure?”

“That’s what you say when someone says that to you? ‘Are you sure?’”

“I don’t know! No one has ever said it to me before!”

“It’s not what you say,” Mayumi spoke, narrowing her eyes at him. He mumbled an apology and she stepped away from him to eye the thin, white material. When she started working on the empty sleeve, he thought she was done speaking to him. He assumed he’d angered her, and maybe he had, but he’d been clueless. He’d never had to talk about same-sex relationships before. He couldn’t think of a single one in the entire clan. And that’s when he realized the problem. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone.” 

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Obito promised her. Same-sex relationships had no place in the Uchiha clan. Obito didn’t know what would happen if he let Mayumi’s secret out, and he didn’t want to find out. “Why would you tell me?”

“It’s not something others talk about, but they wonder, just like you wondered. Why is a girl like her still alone? Doesn’t she want a family?” Mayumi patted the side of Obito’s left calf. “I told you because you asked me, and because I like you. You’re a smart kid. You would have figured it out eventually.”

“Does your family know?”

“I told my mother. She kept it to herself, or I probably wouldn’t be on speaking terms with my family right now.” Mayumi placed the measuring tape and the pins aside. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat,” she smiled, getting up from her knees. Obito stepped off of the stool and she helped him remove the hadajuban. She helped him pull his shirt on, then he pulled his pants on. He assumed they were finished for the day. With him fully dressed, the two went into the kitchen for anpan. “I told you a story. I think you owe me one,” she said, moving around the kitchen to plate anpan. She poured two glasses of milk too.

“Uh, I don’t really have one?” Obito took one of the glasses from her and she led him to the living room, where they sat on her couch. Obito had never been allowed to eat anywhere but at the dining-room table; Mayumi ate wherever she wanted. They both took large bites out of their sweet rolls, and Obito chased the bite with a drink of milk. “I guess I could tell you about the first time Kakashi saved my life?”

“He saved your life?”

“Let me tell the story,” Obito scolded her, trying to think of how it began. “It was our third mission outside of the village. We had to guard a caravan bound for Tanzaku-Gai. They were transporting one big chest of jewels.” Obito paused to take a bite of his sweet roll, then a drink of his milk. Mayumi continued eating too. “It was a typical C-rank. We were in the Land of Fire, so we didn't expect missing nin, but they found us.”

“How old were you?” Mayumi turned on the cushion so that she was facing him.

“Ten,” Obito answered. Mayumi frowned, but she waited for him to continue. “There were three of them. One was around my age, so he was pretty young. Minato-sensei took on one, and Kakashi took on one, leaving me with the last. Rin was guarding the caravan, in case more appeared. The kid I was fighting had to be a chunin, at least. He was fast. I had trouble keeping up with him. Rin kept shouting for me to duck and dodge,” Obito said, taking another large bite of anpan.

“Where were they from?”

“Amegakure.”

“What happened?”

“I took a kunai to the shoulder. The kid got it in pretty deep and he twisted, like he was trying to shove it right through me,” Obito said, reaching up to pull at the neck of his shirt. He managed to reveal a bit of skin. There was a mark by his left shoulder, a misshapen circle slightly raised and paler than the skin around it. “I kneed him and he pulled back, taking the kunai with him. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. I was trying to stay alive. I had just landed a few good hits on my opponent, when someone crashed into my back. We both fell onto the ground. I thought it was an enemy, so I started punching, but it was Kakashi. He took a hit meant for me. If he hadn’t tackled me, the hit from his opponent would have cut my head off. The blade hit Kakashi’s back, because he jumped in the way,” Obito frowning, staring down at the final bite of his anpan. “He probably still has the scar.”

“And here he is again, helping you,” Mayumi smiled. Obito didn’t like the way she said those words, so his frown remained in place. Seeing his grumpy expression hadn’t lifted, Mayumi laughed and gave his shoulder a playful shove. “Some friendships are difficult to understand. I always thought yours was one of them. You complained about him so much, I used to think you had a crush on him.”

“What? No! Mayumi,” Obito whined. “It’s not like that! We’re barely friends!”

“Uh huh. You’re good friends. Stop denying it. I wasn’t born yesterday.” They finished their anpan and drank the rest of their milk. When everything was gone, Obito helped Mayumi carry the dirty dishes into the kitchen, where she started washing and rinsing them. “Was it good?”

“You make the best anpan,” Obito said, grinning. Mayumi chuckled and poked his nose, leaving bubbles behind. Obito swiped them off his nose and crushed them in his hand, so Mayumi pouted. “Do you need any more help with measurements?”

“I’ll need her to try it on and double check a few things. She’s a dainty thing.” Mayumi finished rinsing the dishes, then she set them on a towel next to the sink to dry. She wiped her wet hands on a different towel and set it next to the sink too. She had a puzzled expression on her face, so Obito arched his brow at her. “How are you doing? Are you adjusting alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Nice try. Talk to me, Obito.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing. Orochimaru is helping with my arm. He thinks he might be able to help me. And then Fugaku,” Obito said, staring down at the floor. Mayumi waited for him to speak, so when he didn’t, she reached out and touched his left shoulder. “I might get kicked out of the clan. I thought it would be okay, but now I’m not so sure. Fugaku wanted Kakashi to return my eye, but I want Kakashi to keep it. I gave it to him. I thought I was going to die, and it was the least I could do. I’m not going to just take it back.”

“Fugaku is a stick in the mud,” Mayumi said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t let him intimidate you into doing something you don’t want to do, do you understand me?”

“I didn’t let him, but there’s going to be a clan meeting and there’s going to be a vote on whether or not I should be removed from the clan for insubordination,” Obito explained, shrugging. Mayumi gave his shoulder a light squeeze. “My parents, my grandparents, my whole family was in this clan. I can’t lose this. But if it came to a choice, I guess I’d choose Kakashi. He’s been doing more for me lately than my clan has done my whole life.”

“The meeting tomorrow is open for all clan members. If he calls for comments, I promise you I’ll speak for you. You’re a good kid, and I think you’re right. If you want Kakashi to keep the gift you gave him, then he should get to keep it. What’s he going to do, make off into the night? From what you used to tell me, he was very serious about his place as a shinobi,” Mayumi said, removing her hand from Obito’s shoulder. Obito smiled at her and she returned it. Before they had the chance to continue talking, a bell rang from the dining room, signaling that someone needed help in the shop. Mayumi led Obito out of the apartment and downstairs. 

Obito opened the backroom door for Mayumi and she patted his head, reminding him of a dog. When he went to complain, she did it again. Sometimes Obito forgot how childish Mayumi could be. He liked her anyway. They got along so well because of those moments. She was like an older sister to him, and she had been for as long as he could remember. Inside the shop, Mayumi left the backroom to go to the front, so Obito followed her. Mikoto stood there, a four-year-old Itachi standing to her left, their hands linked. Mayumi cooed at Itachi and went over to pinch his cheeks, while Mikoto let her cool gaze wash over Obito. They hadn't seen one another since the Taro incident, and she hadn't been very happy with him. Obito shifted on his feet. He went to touch his right arm, but he brushed against his empty sleeve. He'd forgotten he didn't have an arm there anymore.

“I thought I might find you here,” Mikoto began, releasing Itachi's hand. Mayumi swept the boy into her arms and carried him off toward the children's clothing section. “Kushina and I found some of your belongings today. She has them at her home.”

“Thank you, Auntie,” Obito said, using the nickname he'd given her when he was younger. In fact, they were related; they were cousins of some sort, from his mother's side of the family. 

“I heard about the clan meeting,” Mikoto admitted, her expression neutral. Obito sometimes forgot that she'd been a jonin, and a damn good one too. She still had her tanto hanging up in her home, right in the dining room. Obito assumed she'd teach Itachi how to handle the blade. Someday. Instead of speaking, Obito nodded. “I don't agree with you, but being removed from the clan seems extreme.”

“I'm not backing down.”

“I'm not telling you to back down, Obito. I'm telling you I won't support you being disowned. I think you really need us right now, and it would be a shame if we let you down.”

“What good is that going to do? The council votes.”

“Think of it like a hearing and consider my words testimony. The floor will be open before the vote,” Mikoto explained. Obito tilted his head, his confusion clear. She smiled at him, though it didn't reach her eyes. She was still mad at him. He could tell. “You'll see what I mean. You don't frequent clan meetings like I do.”

“Here we go,” Mayumi announced, returning with Itachi. Her arms were full with all sorts of clothing and Itachi seemed amused. His lips had curved upwards to reveal the ghost of a smile. “Do you need me to hem these, Mikoto?”

“No, it will give me something to do,” Mikoto said, unbothered by the number of clothes in Mayumi's arms. While Mayumi went to wrap the clothing up and secure it with string, Obito continued talking with Mikoto about the weather, which was what he deemed a _safe topic_. Mayumi returned with four bundles, two of them larger than the others. “Fugaku is going to complain about this,” Mikoto laughed.

“He should know by now that I spoil cute kids, right, Itachi?” Mayumi winked at the boy and he nodded. “Here, Obito. You left these in the backroom,” Mayumi spoke, giving him two of the bundles. Obito had forgotten all about the yukata. He didn't need to stay at the shop any longer, so when Mikoto left, he left. Mayumi told him to stop by anytime, and then she focused on hugging the life out of both Obito and Itachi. Itachi had to flail to be let go. 

“Come to the house earlier than sundown and have an early dinner with us. We can walk together,” Mikoto offered. Beside Obito, standing between Mikoto and Obito, Itachi remained quiet, most likely trying to ignore the conversation. Itachi was mature for his age, something that Obito blamed on Fugaku. The clan head had already begun teaching Itachi shinobi basics, and Obito had heard a rumor that Itachi could already perform the three academy jutsu required for graduation. But rumors were rumors, most likely. Obito glanced down at Itachi and found the boy staring up at him. “Itachi hasn’t seen you in a while.” Mikoto knew to bring up Itachi, because Obito liked kids. He found Itachi adorable, despite the obvious maturity, or maybe it was because of the maturity. Obito really couldn’t decide.

“Do you want me to come to dinner?” Obito rested his hand atop Itachi’s head and Itachi narrowed his eyes, as if telling Obito to remove the hand. Instead of moving his hand, Obito ruffled Itachi’s hair, completely ruining the boy’s ponytail.

“Where have you been?” Itachi reached up and tried to fix his hair, patting it down and smoothing it out. He couldn’t fix it all, because he needed to take the tie out of his hair and start all over again. “No one will tell me anything,” Itachi frowned. For four years old, he was too smart. Obito had missed his birthday. For some reason, Obito couldn’t believe that Itachi remembered him, as if Itachi barely had a working memory; then again, Obito didn’t know a lot about young kids. He’d been rather oblivious until he’d lost his parents.

“I was on a mission,” Obito said, stretching the truth. Mikoto glanced over at Obito, then looked down at Itachi. Obito wondered if she’d step in and redirect the conversation, but she seemed just as interested as Itachi. The look Itachi gave Obito made Obito sigh. “I was gone for so long because I was beating up bad guys. You know, what shinobi do.”

“It took you almost a year to beat people up? They must have been strong,” Itachi frowned. Obito couldn’t tell if Itachi believed him or not, because Itachi liked to use sarcasm, something that Obito disliked; Obito could be both gullible and a bit dense. “Did you bring me something back?”

“Uh,” Obito stalled, looking at Mikoto. She took joy in him sweating, so she smiled. The spark of mischief in her eyes left him stumbling even more. At some point, Obito had stopped walking and he bent down to be closer to Itachi’s height. “I still owe you a birthday present. How about we get dango?” The magic word worked. Itachi’s eyes lit up and he looked toward his mother for approval. Mikoto contemplated it, so Obito decided to address her instead. “I’ll bring him right back. We can get dango at the sweets shop in the district. The one with the tables outside.”

“No fighting and no swear words. Don’t let him wander off, and don’t let him eat too much. It will spoil his dinner,” Mikoto gave in. “I mean it, Obito. He’ll eat dango until he throws up. You know how he is.”

“I know. I promise. I’m like the cool older brother, but I can be strict when necessary.” Obito flashed her a brilliant smile and she took one last look at Itachi. She bent down to kiss the top of Itachi’s head, something that had him blushing, then she straightened up again. “Come on. Let’s get some dango.” With the two wrapped yukata under his arm, Obito held out his hand and Itachi took it. Itachi didn’t like holding hands, but he humored his mother and Obito. Mikoto watched them walk away, until they were just another pair in the sea of foot traffic. 

“Why were you really gone?”

“You’re too smart for your age.”

“That’s what Kushina says.”

“It was a mission gone wrong, but I’m back now. Safe and sound,” Obito smiled, swinging their joined hands. Itachi looked up at him, expression blank, just like Mikoto’s had been in Mayumi’s shop. “Alright, so I’m a little beat up, but I’m back.”

“What happened to your arm?” Itachi used his free hand to point to the empty sleeve that had begun swaying in the light breeze. Obito glanced over at the sleeve, then back at Itachi. Itachi had always been curious, too curious, so Obito hesitated to say anything. It wasn’t that Itachi had a big mouth, because the kid typically kept to himself; Obito didn’t want to scare Itachi into thinking being a shinobi was a bad thing. Fugaku would murder him. “Did you win?”

“Sort of.” Itachi let the subject drop, so Obito sighed in relief. They reached the sweets shop and Itachi opened the door for Obito. When they entered the cool interior, Itachi wasted no time going up to the counter to place his order. He ordered several skewers of mitarashi dango, most likely all for himself. Obito ordered the same number, so they ordered ten in total. “Don’t inhale these,” Obito warned, reaching into his pants pocket to grab some ryo. Itachi took the two plates of dango and went over to one of the three indoor tables. He picked the one next to the window, so they had a view of the street.

“Did you miss Konoha?” Itachi waited until Obito had taken a seat at the table, then he resumed questioning. Itachi stuffed a piece of dango into his mouth, then another. His cheeks were full, but he chewed properly. He didn’t talk with his mouth full, unlike Obito.

“Yeah, I missed Konoha. I missed the people in Konoha. I missed dango,” Obito said, chuckling. Itachi nodded, then ate another piece of his dango. He’d almost eaten one skewer. “Did you miss me?”

“My father said you died. I’ve never known anyone who died,” Itachi admitted, finishing off his first skewer and moving to the second. Obito didn’t know what to say to that. He’d never considered the possibility that someone had to explain death to a four-year-old kid. Itachi was brilliant, most definitely a prodigy, but Obito knew death was a hard topic for everyone. He thought of Rin again, trying to imagine how he would have reacted if he’d simply been told that she’d died instead of witnessing her death. He didn’t think he would have had any chance at closure. “Did you always want to be a shinobi?”

“Huh? Well, no. I wanted to be a doctor, at one point,” Obito admitted, an embarrassed smile on his face. Itachi didn’t mock him, which was refreshing. Then again, Itachi had never been one to be that cruel. The boy had a kind heart. Obito hoped it stayed that way, right through to the end. “What do you want to do with your life?” He knew the question was heavy, especially for a four-year-old kid. He’d expected Itachi to blurt out what most kids blurted out, that he wanted to be Hokage. Obito had been there; deep down, he still believed he had a shot.

“I want to be a teacher.” Itachi hadn’t hesitated, which had Obito blinking a few times. Itachi knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Obito knew Itachi would start at the academy next year, so Obito wondered where he got the idea from. Mikoto was teaching him; Fugaku was teaching him. Maybe he enjoyed learning. Obito went from shock to joy, and then his mood plummeted. Fugaku would never allow Itachi to teach, not as the clan heir, not as the next face of their clan.

“Have you told anyone this?”

“Just you.”

“I think you should keep this dream to yourself. It’s a great dream, but I don’t think your dad would care for it,” Obito said, his voice low. No other customers were in the shop. The two people who had entered the shop after Obito and Itachi had gone to one of the tables outside. But Obito didn’t want word getting back to Fugaku. Everyone in the clan liked to gossip. Itachi frowned, but he nodded. “I think you’d make an awesome teacher, Itachi. I think you can do whatever you want.” The two focused on their dango for the remainder of their time in the shop. Itachi inhaled five skewers, then Obito gave him another two from his own plate.

“My stomach hurts,” Itachi admitted, both hands on his midsection, right over his stomach. Obito paled and quickly counted out the empty sticks. Itachi had eaten seven sticks of dango.

“Don’t tell your mom how much you ate. This stays between us, got it?” Obito was already out of his chair. He pulled Itachi’s chair away from the table and Itachi slid off of the chair. Itachi kept one hand on his stomach, while his other went to hold Obito’s hand. “When dinner comes around, after I’m gone, just mention you feel sick or something. If she asks about the dango, you had two and stopped.”

“You want me to lie to my mother?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to get me a real present for my birthday?”

“Are you serious?” Itachi nodded at Obito. Sighing, Obito considered a few gift ideas. He could afford to get Itachi an actual birthday gift, instead of overfeeding the kid. “Fine, but this stays between us,” Obito repeated. Itachi nodded again and the two of them continued to walk to Itachi’s house. When they reached Itachi’s house, Itachi finally let go of Obito’s hand and the two entered into the home. Itachi announced he was home, and Mikoto called him toward the kitchen. 

“Did you have a good time?” Mikoto looked away from the stove, where she’d been stirring something. Itachi accepted the hug she offered him, then he went to wash his hands at the sink. He liked helping his mother cook. Obito didn’t want to linger, since the two enjoyed the moments they had together, so he said he’d stop by tomorrow, and then he left. Itachi still had a lot to learn about life, but he seemed to understand that the moments he shared with his mother were precious. One day, they would disappear altogether. They needed the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love little Itachi. I had to throw him in here. He'll return for future chapters too!


	6. Chapter 6

The rain slapped against the living room windows, water cascading down the glass. The forecast had called for rain, and the sky had delivered. Obito had a few hours before he had to leave again. He'd already visited Orochimaru again, giving more blood and another tissue sample. Orochimaru had even checked his eye, despite the fact that the sharingan had nothing to do with his injury. When he'd brought up one-handed seals, Orochimaru had reluctantly agreed that it was a good idea, and that he believed Obito could handle them, given enough patience and discipline. Obito had almost cried. Orochimaru had believed in him. After Obito left, just after lunch time, he stopped for takeout. He'd gotten completely drenched on the walk home, since he'd forgotten Kakashi's umbrella, so he'd had to change clothes first thing. He decided he needed to look more professional anyway, since he was basically going to his own trial. He decided on all black, the uchiwa the only color with his outfit. It'd taken him longer to get ready, as usual, but he'd done it on his own. Then he sat down to eat his barbecue. Halfway through his pork, someone started pounding on the front door. At first, Obito had ignored it, thinking someone had the wrong apartment, but the person was persistent. Obito got to his feet and stomped over to the door. A nasty expression on his face, he prepared to rant at someone about respect and not beating on someone's door. He never got the chance, because someone grabbed him by the front of his shirt and started trying to drag him from the apartment. Hand braced on the doorframe, Obito firmly planted his feet and fought back. Genma let him go and Obito stumbled backwards into the apartment. 

“Get your sandals on. We're going to the hospital,” Genma announced, his senbon clicking against his teeth. Obito stared at him, his brow arched, and then the words clicked and his stomach dropped. Something must have been revealed on his face, because Genma nodded. “Hurry up.” Obito was already stepping into his sandals by that point, then the two left. Obito had issues locking the door, so Genma had to step in. Obito's hand shook too bad to turn the lock. 

“What happened?” They already climbed up to the rooftops, where they hurried along the unmarked paths, bypassing the crowded streets below. Genma mumbled something. Obito almost slid off the roof, so Genma had to grab the back of Obito's shirt and drag him back on course. “Tell me something!”

“He's probably in surgery right now. He didn't look good.”

“You mean he might?” 

Obito couldn't even say the word. He hated everything about death. Death forced him to face a harsh reality, one he'd rather avoid. He was still denying Rin's death, still unable to process the fact that she was never coming back, so the thought of starting all over again, the thought of saying goodbye to someone else, left him reeling. He felt like stopping to throw up, but he forced himself to keep moving. By the time they finished their fast-paced run to the hospital, both boys were drenched. Obito didn't care that he looked as if he were one step from being drowned. He darted into the hospital, slipped on the wet tiles, and fell on his ass. From the floor, he stared up at the gawking receptionist. It was Genma helping Obito up from the floor, Genma dragging him to the front desk. Obito couldn't get the words out, so the receptionist turned to Genma. At the mention of Kakashi's name, the nurse was pulling up files, flipping through charts. Kakashi's file was surprisingly thin. It wasn't like him to get injured to such a degree that he needed the hospital. Kakashi hated going to the hospital, so he often stitched his own injuries and treated his own cuts and scrapes with ointment. 

“He's still in surgery. We won't know anything until he's out. You can take a seat, you can stop in the cafeteria, or you can go home and we'll send a message when he's out,” the brunette woman said, motioning to the waiting room, the doors to the cafeteria, and the front doors.

“Do you want me to wait with you?” Genma was a pretty good person, but Obito didn't want someone hovering over him. Obito wanted to be left alone. He wanted to come to terms with the fact that Kakashi could die. So Obito shook his head. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I'll just grab a seat here. Were you on the mission too?” It was Genma's turn to shake his head. Obito didn't care then. He'd wanted answers, but all he had was more questions. The mission should have been simple. What had gone wrong? Who had hurt Kakashi? Obito clenched his fist. Someone deserved to pay; someone deserved to suffer. Obito wanted to be the one to make the person pay, to make the person suffer.

“If you need anything, just let me know. Raido is on the third floor, room three hundred and two, if you want to visit him to kill some time,” Genma said. He stayed there a few moments longer, then he left, going back out into the pouring rain. He'd forgotten an umbrella too.

Obito sank into one of the chairs. Leaning forward, forearms resting atop his thighs, he stared down at the plain white tiles. He wanted to know more on Kakashi's condition, but he slowly accepted the fact that Genma had seen Kakashi being rushed inside; Genma had been the one to judge Kakashi's state. Obito trusted Genma enough to believe the words. Genma had never been one to exaggerate. They both knew when to say something was serious. In other words, it must have been bad for Genma to hunt down Obito. It wasn't long before Kushina burst through the hospital doors, already scanning the room for someone. When her eyes found Obito, she hurried around the seats to get to him. She collapsed into the chair to Obito's left, then she sighed, a long, drawn out sound. How many times had she visited them in the hospital? It was usually Obito, and she'd always rant at him to be more careful. It was always Kakashi and Rin waiting on him. Then again, he'd never been in critical condition.

“He'll be okay,” Kushina promised him, slumping back in her chair. Obito nodded, even though he didn't believe her. He was a realist, bordering on a pessimist, especially since Kannabi. Kushina seemed to understand that her words had provided little comfort. “Let me check on him. Just wait right here.” She said it as if he had somewhere else to go. And then he remembered Fugaku, and the dinner he had with Mikoto. He couldn't leave. He couldn't abandon Kakashi when Kakashi needed him. He'd chosen Kakashi before, and he meant to choose him again. “What do you mean?” Kushina shouted at the receptionist and slammed her first down on the desk. “You have to know more than that! Go check on him!”

Obito watched the receptionist flipping through charts again, while Kushina waited for answers. When the receptionist repeated what she'd told Obito, Obito left his chair and went toward the desk. He stood next to Kushina and looked down at the file the receptionist had used. There was a room number on it, so Obito memorized it and walked toward the hallway leading to the operating rooms. Kushina let him go, because she went back to talking to the woman behind the desk, her voice lowered. Her anger had dissolved, replaced with desperation. Maybe she knew where Obito was going. Maybe she knew he was using her as a distraction. Obito opened the two doors and quickly entered, then he wandered down the hallway, reading room numbers as he went. When he reached operating room three, he looked through the small windows in the double doors. People were gathered around the table, all of them dressed in white.

“You can't be back here.” The receptionist had made an appearance, most likely due to Kushina either demanding the woman investigate or letting the woman go. Obito didn't look away from the windows. He heard a loud sound, signaling flatlining, and then the doctors inside scattered, all of them trying to revive Kakashi. The receptionist touched Obito's shoulder, trying to get him to turn around and head back to the waiting room. “You don't want to see this.” But Obito refused to budge. He saw Kakashi on the table, his chest open, his heart exposed, and Obito doubled over and threw up. “Come on,” the woman quietly spoke, finally getting him moving. “Keep going.” She stayed behind, most likely to find someone to clean up his vomit.

Back in the waiting room, Obito found Kushina still waiting at the front desk. His hand over his stomach, he returned to her side and she hugged him. “Did you find him?” She finally let him go and he nodded once. “How does he look? Is he alright? Should I sneak back too?” So she'd been serving as a distraction. Obito didn't know whether to thank her or curse her. He hadn't wanted to see Kakashi in that state. He didn't think he'd ever get that image out of his head. “Obito?”

“He flatlined.”

“I'm going back there.”

Obito caught her arm before she could storm off and see the same scene Obito had seen. “Don't go back there. You don't want to see him. He looks bad,” Obito frowned, still nauseated. Kushina stared at the double doors, then down at Obito. “I don't know if he's going to make it,” he began, voice soft. “I don't think he's going to make it,” he amended, shaking his head.

“Let me get Minato, alright? Let me get him down here. Can you wait right here?” Kushina placed her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eye, then she began leading him toward the chairs they'd just vacated. There were more people in the waiting room, some of them huddled together, talking amongst themselves, and others waiting alone. The hospital was a place to say goodbye, Obito decided. He wasn't ready to say goodbye. “I'll be right back,” Kushina promised him, waiting until he dropped into his chair again. Then Obito watched her go. 

Alone, Obito thought about life and death. Death didn't discriminate. Young. Old. Shinobi. Civilian. The cemeteries took on more and more people. And maybe it was selfish of Obito to want to avoid another funeral fiasco. Maybe it was selfish of him to pray for Kakashi, as if prayers would save the teen's life. Obito had never been religious, had never been one to fall back on prayer, but he had no other options. He wasn't a medic. He wasn't fit for active duty. All he had left was prayer. So he prayed. He prayed until he couldn't pray anymore, and then he begged. He bargained with death, going toe-to-toe with the unseen force. Obito didn't want to lose someone else. God, he didn't want to lose anyone else. Obito wondered if the surgical team had managed to restart Kakashi's heart; he wondered how long it would take for someone to find him and tell him that Kakashi had died.

Kushina had been gone for thirty minutes, before Obito finally regained a sense of awareness. He tried reminding himself he wasn't really alone, not with the other families and friends still waiting for news on their loved ones. Obito wanted someone there for him though, and the person that had once been there was fighting for his life. Obito felt sick again, or maybe the feeling had never really subsided, maybe emptying the contents of his stomach all over the pristine floor hadn't been enough.

“Hatake.” A doctor stood in front of the front desk, a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. Obito left his chair and walked towards the woman. His steps made him feel a little like a robot. He just needed to put one foot in front of the other; he just needed to keep moving. He could handle the news. He could look the woman in the eye and handle whatever she had to share. Again, he prayed, but he prayed for strength. “Are you here for Hatake?”

“Yeah,” Obito said, clearing his throat to stop his voice from cracking. The doctor smiled at him, though it was sad. And Obito kept praying.

“He's still in critical condition, but he's out of surgery. There's nothing more we can do right now but make him as comfortable as possible,” the doctor informed him. She turned the clipboard around and started pointing at different places on a rough drawing of a human body. “He suffered a pretty severe heart attack. He'll suffer from tachycardia until we can schedule another surgery to try and repair more of the damage. His lungs are doing much better. We were able to drain the left lung. His broken rib was repaired, but it needs time to fully heal on its own. There's a lot of bruising, so he's going to be in a lot of pain for a few days.”

“He needs another surgery?”

“His heart is weak right now and we don't want another episode like we had. He's not fit for surgery yet.”

“Is he going to make it?”

“I can't say for sure. I'm sorry,” the doctor frowned, turning the clipboard back around so the human body faced her. Obito felt his stomach clench and he rested a hand over it, trying to keep himself calm, trying not to throw up on the doctor's shoes. “He's hooked up to a lot of machines right now, but you can see him. Would you like me to take you there?”

“Yeah,” Obito said, nodding. Obito looked around the room for any signs of Kushina or Minato, but they hadn't arrived yet. He mumbled to the receptionist to let the two know what had happened, then he followed the doctor to the second-floor intensive care unit. He wanted to ask about Kakashi's pain, but he couldn't speak. Mute, resigned, he trailed after the doctor, feeling very much like a lost duckling. “Will he be awake?”

“Not yet. He might come around in a few hours,” the doctor smiled, that same sad smile on her lips. She opened the door for him and he went inside. When he turned back to look at her, she was gone, already walking down the hallway. Obito was alone again; he no longer had the other families and friends to keep him company.

Kakashi was pale, paler than he should have been, and that worried Obito. Obito slowly approached the bed and peered down at his friend, trying to see wounds that weren't visible. He recalled the way Kakashi had looked on the operating table, with the hole in his chest. Obito pretended that Kakashi was sleeping, that nothing in the last hour and a half had ever happened. Obito pulled a chair over to the side of the bed and sat down. He felt like he needed to say something, but he didn't know where to begin. He was back at Rin’s grave again, trying and failing to say the right words, to be the strong person. Obito took a deep breath and looked out the window at the afternoon sky. It was raining still, and he thought he heard the roll of thunder. He was losing Kakashi too.

“I don't know what to say,” Obito huffed, forcing laughter. Nothing helped his nerves. His hand was shaking and his stomach was aching, and he didn't know where to begin. “I'm sorry I wasn't there. The mission was supposed to be simple. You should have been able to handle yourself. Instead, you're here. And I don't even know how much longer we have. You're trying to leave me, damn it, and I don't want you to.” Obito glared down at the white bedspread, all hints of his laughter already gone. He hesitated, but he eventually reached out and touched Kakashi’s left hand. There was a seal on the back of the hand, probably something leftover from the surgery, or maybe just another way for the staff to keep track of his health. Obito didn’t know, so he grasped at any explanation and moved on. “We’re all that’s left. It’s just us. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to go to another funeral. I don’t want to visit your grave. I’m sorry for everything, for my attitude, for my insults, for all of the arguments. If you wake up,” Obito trailed off, his unspoken words lost.

The door to the room creaked open, but Obito didn’t look away from Kakashi’s face. He felt a hand on his left shoulder, the added weight he hadn’t known he’d needed. Kushina circled around the bed and left a stuffed panda on the bedside table. There was a little card attached, so Obito assumed she’d left an encouraging note for Kakashi. Kakashi just needed to wake up. He just needed to see the bear, to read the card, and then everything would make sense again. Minato sat down on the edge of the hospital bed and stared down at Obito’s hand, where his fingers touched Kakashi’s.

“You know he’s a fighter, Obito,” Minato frowned. The man had come directly from a formal meeting. He still wore his robes and his hat. Kushina had likely barged into the meeting and dragged him away. It had taken longer than expected, so maybe he’d put up a fight. Obito wanted to think Kushina had given the people a few choice words, something along the lines of Kakashi being more important than whatever they had been discussing. If Obito ever doubted how much he still meant to Kushina and Minato, he only had to look at their faces right then. “It’s almost time for your meeting,” Minato spoke, drawing Obito’s attention away from Kakashi. “Are you going to go?”

“How can you ask him that? Of course he’s not going!” Kushina tried to adjust Kakashi’s pillows, then she crossed her arms over her chest. Her body language screamed that she’d closed herself off. Obito had been gone for eleven months, so Kushina, Minato, Kakashi, and Rin had grown closer. She didn’t want to lose Kakashi either. None of them wanted to experience loss again.

“I think he should go,” Minato decided, his attention split between Kushina and Obito. Kushina made a face, but she didn’t say anything in response. “If you don’t show up, you won’t have another opportunity to share your side of the story. Fugaku won’t delay the vote.”

“I’m not leaving,” Obito frowned. “What if he wakes up and I’m not here? What if something goes wrong and I decided to go to the clan meeting instead of staying here? They can just kick me out. I don’t care anymore.”

“If he wakes up while you’re at the clan meeting, you know I can find you. You won’t miss anything. How long have you been at the hospital, Obito?” Minato reminded Obito of the time again, reminding him of the fact that he’d been in the middle of eating barbecue just hours before. He didn’t know where the time went. He looked at the window, as if the rain would answer his multitude of questions, and maybe it would. Sunset was almost upon them, though the grey clouds muted the pink, orange, and purple hues in the sky. Minato followed Obito’s line of sight and looked out at the sky. “You need to take care of yourself too.”

“Minato,” Kushina began. She didn’t get to finish because he smiled at her. “What’s so wrong with him wanting to stay? Can’t you do anything about this? You’re the Hokage. Do something about it.”

“You know that’s not how it works. I already tried talking to Fugaku, but you know how he is. We only tolerate one another because of you and Mikoto,” Minato said, shaking his head. Kushina didn’t look very convinced, but she didn’t argue with him. Maybe they wanted to argue in private. Obito really didn’t want to listen to them going back and forth. “I can go with you?”

“That would look great,” Obito muttered. He couldn’t imagine Minato being welcomed into a clan meeting. The guy would probably have to wait outside in the rain. And being escorted to the meeting at all said something about Obito. It said he couldn’t handle his own business, that he really needed someone to hold his hand. Obito stared at the vertical scar over Kakashi’s left eye. “I’m going,” he decided then, looking over at Minato, then Kushina. “I’m going to make sure they know exactly how I feel.”

“Please don’t start a riot,” Minato said, nervous laughter following. Kushina beamed, whether at Obito’s decision or Minato’s words, Obito couldn’t tell. “Do you want me to walk with you?”

“No, I can handle it. Come and get me if anything changes.” Obito didn’t want to leave his chair. He didn’t want to go back out into the rain, where he’d only notice the similarities between Rin’s death and Kakashi’s current state. But he meant what he’d said. He wanted everyone in the clan to know how he felt about the sharingan, about clan politics, about everything. He had absolutely nothing to lose, not anymore.

Obito had a decent walk from the hospital to the Uchiha district, and he didn’t have much time to waste, so he ran. He didn’t care that the rain soaked him all over again; he didn’t care that he stepped in large puddles. He’d wanted to impress his clan, to stand before them as Obito and show them that he was somebody, but that had been hours ago. That had been before he found out about Kakashi. He felt like a completely different person. As he ran, he was operating on autopilot, seeing but not really seeing. By the time he reached the meeting hall, he was already late. The sun had already set, and everyone had already gone inside. He was the last one to arrive. He had to wonder why he chose to leave the hospital. Maybe, deep down, he still loved the clan, just as he’d loved it when he was a little boy. He wanted to hang on to the last thing connecting him to his grandmother, to his entire family. That meant standing up to the clan. He could do that. He had enough strength left to do that much. When he entered the hall, he had to navigate through the large crowd. A lot of people had turned up for the meeting, a lot more than he’d anticipated, at least. At the front of the hall, a long table had been set up. There were four people seated at the table, two of them he recognized, and two of them he didn’t. He recognized Fugaku, and he recognized Fugaku’s father, Keiji. Before Obito had left for the Kannabi bridge mission, Keiji had been clan head. He’d named his first son the heir, but he’d died in the war; then, his second son died. Fugaku was the only one left.

“You’re late,” Fugaku said, the first to recognize Obito’s soaked form. Obito tried to squeeze the rain water from his shirt, but nothing helped. He looked as if he’d tried to drown himself, and there was nothing he could do about it. Fugaku pointed to a single seat located before the table, so Obito went and sank to his knees, forcing himself into the uncomfortable seiza position.

“So he did decide to show up,” Keiji commented, leaning forward in his seat. He squinted at Obito. Obito had heard that the man was nearly blind. “You called a vote for this, Fugaku?”

“I move we vote now,” another member of council spoke. It was an older man, his short grey hair held back in a low ponytail. When he turned to look at the others, his hair hit the back of his neck. “Do we have a second?”

“Give the kid a chance to speak, old man,” the youngest member sighed. He folded his arms atop the table and offered Obito a small smile, one Obito couldn’t really return. Underneath the rain, Obito was sweating. His nerves had already kicked in; fight or flight seemed like the only options available to him. “State your name.”

“Uchiha Obito,” Obito said, his name acting as a means to hush the murmurs. The clan was behind him, and he could hear a few of the people asking about his parents, then his grandparents. They meant to learn his entire family tree in a few moments. If the council wanted him to squirm, he was squirming. Fugaku sat front and center, with Keiji on his left, and the other two to his right.

“Do you know who we all are?” The same man spoke again, so Obito focused his attention there. He decided to shake his head, instead of giving a verbal response. “The old man is Uchiha Taisuke,” the man said, motioning to the oldest man on council. Obito thought he heard Taisuke mutter about disrespect and shame, but he was busy ignoring the ache in his knees. “My name is Uchiha Shigeru,” Shigeru introduced himself.

“Enough with pleasantries,” Keiji grunted, knocking his knuckles against the table. “We all know why we’re here. Just what did you think you were doing, giving your eye to an outsider? No, Shigeru,” Keiji said, cutting off Shigeru before he had the chance to interject, “your leniency isn’t wanted here. Be quiet.”

“Obito, answer the question,” Fugaku pressed, completely ignoring the dirty looks exchanged between Keiji and Shigeru. Obito swallowed hard and took a calming breath. In a hospital, on the other side of town, Kakashi was still fighting for his life. Obito didn’t have time to waste; he didn’t have time to play with the council.

“The mission details are classified. What happened afterwards is also classified,” Obito informed them, squaring his shoulders. Keiji scoffed, and then Taisuke shook his head. “I thought I was going to die. I didn’t think I was coming back from the mission. I only had one good thing left, my sharingan. Kakashi had lost an eye. So I gave him mine.”

“And look where that got you,” Taisuke said, referencing Obito’s missing left eye. “You clearly aren’t dead, boy, though you look like hell.”

“Taisuke,” Fugaku warned him, finally turning to fix a hard stare on the old man. Keiji held up a hand to stop the argument before it even began. “So you gave Hatake Kakashi one of your eyes.” That earned a lot of murmurs from the clan members at Obito’s back. Obito knew they weren’t keen on outsiders, even at the best of times, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard a few nasty comments asking about his sanity.

“The Hatake boy?” Keiji laughed at that, causing Taisuke to snicker as well. “You gave the sharingan to the son of the White Fang? You had no right to hand over our dojutsu to that boy. Reclaim the eye.”

“I’m not taking it back,” Obito said, speaking out of turn. Taisuke looked ready to pounce, but Obito didn’t stop long enough to give the man the chance. “It’s my eye. It’s my sharingan. It’s my decision, not yours.”

“Why you insolent,” Keiji began, slamming a fist down on the table. Fugaku looked at his father and immediately cleared his throat. Keiji glowered, but he didn’t continue the sentence. “I second Taisuke’s motion. We should vote now.”

“You would live the rest of your life with one eye?” Shigeru ignored Taisuke and Keiji. Obito nodded, so Shigeru shrugged his shoulders, not quite understanding. “Have you thought about what could happen to that eye? He’s young. He lacks experience. You just lost a member of your team, didn’t you?”

“He’s strong, stronger than I am right now,” Obito frowned, motioning toward the empty right sleeve of his shirt. Shigeru didn’t show any outward signs of judgment, so Obito continued. “I know he won’t let the sharingan fall into the wrong hands. I trust him.”

“Feh, trust, he says,” Taisuke responded, rolling his eyes. “He doesn’t even understand the power he has. He’s too young. You’re too young.”

“You don’t even have an active sharingan,” Shigeru pointed out, causing Taisuke’s face to turn red. Obito couldn’t tell whether the red was from embarrassment or anger. “Obito, you’re here because you refuse to follow through with the clan head’s decision. You haven’t convinced any of us that this is more than a child throwing a temper tantrum.”

“Exactly,” Keiji added, shaking his head. “I heard the Hatake boy recently returned from a failed mission. Daizo was on gate duty. Is this true?” Keiji paused, as if waiting for a response. Obito expected to hear an answer, but the man must have nodded instead. “The sharingan is a big responsibility, one I don’t think you are ready for. I move we seal it.”

“What?” Fugaku quickly turned to his father. Obito had never heard about someone having the sharingan sealed. Obito didn’t think the clan could do that, but he wasn’t an expert with clan politics and village politics. Obito suddenly regretted his decision to attend the meeting alone. Taisuke raised his hand in agreement with Keiji. “You’re impossible,” Fugaku spat.

“You actually support this? Have I taught you nothing? We didn’t get to be the clan we are today by giving away our secrets! If Madara were around today,” Keiji began, his loud voice carrying throughout the hall.

“He’d be a withered old man,” Obito spoke, shocking Keiji into silence. “I stand by my decision, and if that means I’m removed from the clan, then I’m removed from the clan. What have any of you offered me? Any of you,” Obito said, turning his head to glance over his right shoulder. “The only reason you’re paying attention to me is because of Kakashi, and I already know you look down on him for what his father did, both with the failed mission and his own suicide!”

“Open the floor,” Taisuke interrupted, waving a hand toward the people. Obito gritted his teeth, but he didn’t speak again.

“Uchiha Mayumi,” Mayumi introduced herself, the very first one to raise her hand. The people parted to allow the council to see her. She’d dressed up, and her long dark hair was pulled up and held back with two silver hair sticks. “Is this what our clan has become? Have we gathered to witness the persecution of a young boy?” 

“Persecution? How could you possibly understand what it means to truly be persecuted?” Keiji spoke, but Taisuke nodded along with the words. Mayumi laughed, something that had Obito’s stomach turning. She didn’t sound like his Mayumi.

“You aren’t going to turn this on me, Keiji. Obito is close to Kakashi -- and that is the boy’s name, not ‘Hatake boy’ -- so I believe he knows Kakashi better than you and I. He’s young, but you were young once too, and weren’t you the youngest with an active sharingan in clan history? You weren’t prepared enough; you weren’t ready for the responsibility,” Mayumi frowned, pointing a finger at Keiji. “I won’t stand here and let you talk about sealing the sharingan. Haven’t you learned your lesson with that? It’s instant blindness. Just ask my grandfather.” Taisuke looked uncomfortable then, as he shifted around. Maybe his legs were nothing but pins and needles, like Obito’s legs.

“This is easily prevented. He could take the eye back,” Keiji said, waving Mayumi away with his hand. “Your words are noted. Someone else.”

“Um, Uchiha Isuzu,” Obito heard her speak. He almost turned to see her, but he didn’t want the council to know they’d met. He didn’t think that would help his case. Keiji frowned, but he didn’t say anything to stop Isuzu from speaking. “Obito is still willing to remain within the clan, and he’s working toward returning to active duty, aren’t you, Obito?” Everyone turned to look at Obito, so he nodded. “That’s one more Uchiha on the field, serving the village we all call home. Why are we so ready to throw him out? He just lost his grandmother,” Isuzu frowned.

“Feelings,” Taisuke said, clearly amused. Keiji sighed and shook his head, but he didn’t say anything. “Someone else,” Taisuke announced. Everyone waited for someone else to step forward. Obito prayed that no one else would step forward to champion his cause. The council was harsh, and he really didn’t want to see someone torn to shreds just to defend him. Isuzu didn’t even really know him, yet she’d been willing to speak on his behalf.

“Uchiha Mikoto.” Fugaku actually raised a hand to his face. Beside him, Keiji laughed.

“Your own wife,” Keiji spoke, the words intermixed with his laughter. Taisuke eventually joined in, the two of them clearly too amused by Mikoto’s willingness to defend Obito, even against her husband. “This is what I told you about, Fugaku. This is what happens when you allow a woman too much freedom. Speak, Mikoto.”

“I don’t agree with the way Obito is handling this. I think he should take the eye from Kakashi. It’s my understanding that Kakashi is willing to return it. However,” Mikoto said, her words causing another eruption of whispered conversation, “I think we need to understand that we can’t control this decision. Punishing him won’t get the sharingan from Kakashi. Driving him from the clan is only pushing him toward something else, something we don’t know, something we might not understand.”

“You think it’s better to watch him?” Shigeru spoke again, reminding everyone that there was someone other than Taisuke and Keiji sitting at the table. “Obito,” Shigeru said, looking from Mikoto to Obito, “is it true that you have the mangekyou?”

“Impossible,” Keiji snorted.

“Is it true?” Taisuke had no hints of humor on his face.

“Yes,” Obito finally said. Obito activated the sharingan and Keiji immediately got to his feet and crossed the distance between them. Taisuke hurried to follow after him. “Kakashi also has it.” Keiji reached out and grasped Obito’s chin, moving Obito’s head around to try and get a better look at the design in Obito’s eye. When he’d seen enough, Keiji released Obito, but Taisuke repeated the process. 

“I vote he stays,” Shigeru announced, knocking twice on the table. He turned to look at Fugaku, but Fugaku didn’t respond. “You wanted a vote, Taisuke. Give your vote.”

“We now have an eye with the mangekyou sharingan out there,” Keiji complained. He didn’t return to his seat. He stood before the people, his back to the council table. “Are we really willing to let an outsider know our clan’s deepest secrets? He will make a name for himself on the back of this clan!”

“Think of what his eye means to this clan. He could be the beginning of a strong line. Not everyone has access to the mangekyou, Keiji,” Taisuke said, resting a hand atop Keiji’s shoulder. Keiji scowled at him and pulled away. “I vote he stays.”

“Fugaku,” Keiji demanded, turning on his only remaining son. Fugaku tried to remain passive, but even Obito saw the man was sweating. Mikoto still stood directly behind Obito, and that’s where Fugaku looked. 

“I vote he stays,” Fugaku said, bowing his head. Keiji turned back to the rest of the clan, as if waiting for others to disagree, to challenge Fugaku’s vote. No one spoke. “The majority has it. Obito will remain a member of the Uchiha clan.”

“Mark my words, that eye will be this clan’s downfall.” Keiji took one last look around the room, then he settled his hardened gaze on Obito. Obito summoned every ounce of bravery he had left and made eye contact, refusing to back down. Keiji opened his mouth to say something else, but he quickly stopped himself and closed his mouth. “You still know nothing of being a clan head, Fugaku. I am disappointed in you,” he said, breaking eye contact with Obito.

“I think he’s doing just fine,” Shigeru shrugged. “Your short-sightedness only breeds fear of the unknown. Everything you do is for the clan, yes, but there is a bigger picture, Keiji. We are a part of Konoha. I’ve heard you sound just like Madara, trying to turn us against the very village the Uchiha helped found. There’s nothing wrong with change and growth.” Shigeru rose from his position and gave his legs a quick shake. He had terrible posture, in comparison to the other members of council. Obito wondered how someone like Shigeru had ever made it to the council at all. “This all stems from the fact that the Sandaime Hokage chose Minato for his successor and not your son.”

“Can you blame me? We deserved recognition for everything that we do. We lost a great deal of our shinobi in the war, and we never received thanks. We weren’t even acknowledged!” Keiji shouted the latter portion of his words.

“The Sandaime thought Minato would be a better choice. I’ve accepted this,” Fugaku said, though he didn’t sound very convincing. Obito hadn’t known that Fugaku’s name had been thrown into the hat, that someone from his clan had been in the running. “I don’t agree with the Sandaime’s decision, but there is nothing more I can do but support this clan and support this village, our village.”

“Enough. I’ve heard enough,” Taisuke interrupted them, clapping his hands once. “Are there any other pressing matters?”

“You may rise, Obito,” Fugaku told Obito. Obito had some trouble getting to his feet. Not because of the motion of rising from seiza, but because his legs had completely gone to sleep. “Our next topic to address includes clan fees and our budget surplus.” Obito hesitated to leave, but Taisuke motioned to the clan members that had begun trickling out of the hall and into the rainy night beyond the doors. Shigeru waved at Obito, so Obito bowed to the council and followed after most of the civilians.

“You did well,” Mayumi said, pinching Obito’s left cheek.

They stood just outside of the hall, taking shelter beneath the large awning over the door. Mikoto and Isuzu had stayed behind, both of them having other reasons to remain. Mikoto attended every meeting, both to support her husband and to set an example; Isuzu remained behind because of the fact that her maternity leave didn’t end the collection of clan fees. She still had to pay fees from her weekly stipend. Everyone in the clan contributed to the clan, but shinobi were generally taxed at a higher rate than civilians, because shinobi usually made more money. Obito no longer contributed to the clan, since he currently had no job, which reminded him that he needed to find employment, even if the job was temporary. Obito didn’t want to pay clan fees, but he hadn’t been disowned or otherwise shunned, which meant that he had the responsibility to pay. He didn’t even live in the district, but his money would go toward upkeep. 

“I don’t think I did. It was mostly the people arguing back and forth,” Obito frowned. The rain had slowed, but not enough. He didn’t want to go back to the hospital in a downpour, but he had no other option. He would show up looking like a drowned rat again, but at least he could say he showed up. Visiting hours ended soon, so he couldn’t afford to waste time. He couldn’t be late. “Is it true that they sealed your grandfather’s sharingan?”

“It is. He married a Yamanaka,” Mayumi said, also frowning. “He was only thirty years old, and he spent the rest of his life in darkness. You’ve heard horror stories about the caged bird seal, haven’t you?” Reluctantly, Obito nodded. He had heard about the Hyuga clan, but he’d never seen the seal. Despite having two Hyuga in his class, he’d never noticed any markings on their body. “The seal is similar, and it’s irreversible. Once it’s been applied, your eyes are useless. There’s no way to differentiate between an active sharingan and one that hasn’t been activated, so it destroys sight.” Mayumi stopped to ruffle his damp hair. “Be glad Keiji is no longer clan head.”

“I don’t remember the clan being this bad,” Obito mumbled, nudging the toe of his right sandal at the ground. Mayumi smoothed out his messy head. “What’s so bad about the rest of the village?”

“It’s not always easy to see. On the surface, the waters are calm. Consider this to be the undercurrent. I think you’re old enough to see beneath the surface now. Fugaku is trying to undo the damage Keiji has caused, but it will take time.”

“I should go.”

“If you need anything, you know where to find me.”

Obito didn't run to the hospital. He navigated through the empty streets, walking around mud puddles and kicking stones. He saw a young couple huddled together beneath a single cream-colored umbrella. They were so close that Obito wondered if they meant to become one person. When the man leaned in to kiss the woman, Obito looked away. He didn’t want to be a part of their moment. For some reason, he wondered if that could have been him, if he could have been huddled together with Rin, both of them seeking shelter beneath an umbrella. She wouldn’t have been out in the rain though, and he wouldn’t have been brave enough to finally make a move. And then there was the fact that she was dead, and she was never coming back. Sometimes, Obito forgot that. He played pretend so well, until reality hit him full force, knocking him off his feet. He needed Kakashi to nudge him along. He needed someone else playing the same game. Denial only worked with company. Obito could never quite lose himself, unless he had someone else to get lost with. By the time he reached the hospital, his hair was soaking wet, along with his shirt and the bottoms of his pants. The warm rain had felt so cold to him, and it had removed none of the day’s hardships.

The receptionist made him wait in the lobby while she went to grab him two towels. She said she didn’t want him dripping water all over the floor, but he knew she likely felt sorry for him. He would have felt sorry for someone in his position. Obito draped one towel over his shoulders and used the other one to dry his hair. He rubbed at his head as he climbed the stairs to the second floor. He knew he looked as if he’d showered with his clothes on, but he saw other visitors looking just as drenched and drained. One man was sitting in the hallway, his back to the wall, one knee drawn up toward his chest and the other stretched out before him. He had his hands covering his face and his shoulders were shaking, so Obito knew the man was quietly sobbing. Maybe Obito should have stopped, but he didn’t know what he would have done for the man. Maybe he would have made things worse. As Obito passed by, he saw a nurse hurrying toward him. She passed right by him to go to the sobbing man, where she stooped down and wrapped her arms around him. Obito couldn’t have done that.

Obito stopped towel-drying his hair and opened the door to Kakashi’s room. He didn’t expect for Minato to be there, still sitting at the foot of Kakashi’s bed. He heard the toilet flush, so Kushina must have gone to the room’s restroom. The chair was still open, though there was a second chair in the room, placed on the other side of the bed. Obito looked for the stuffed panda, as if the animal helped him too. Minato had been looking at the floor, but his eyes went to Obito. Obito offered him a tired smile and Minato returned it. 

“He didn’t wake up?” Obito walked toward the bed and dropped into the chair. He heard the sound of the restroom door opening and Kushina stopped in her tracks. Maybe they hadn’t expected him to be back so soon. Minato shook his head, so Obito waved his hand at Kushina, greeting her too. “I’m still in the clan, and Kakashi gets to keep the eye,” he informed them. “They voted on sealing my sharingan too.”

“Why do these people keep abusing our seals?” Kushina fumed, referring to her clan, the creators of the seal, more than likely. She’d approached the bed, so Minato reached out and took her hand, interlacing their fingers. “We wouldn’t have let them, even if they wanted to, you know,” Kushina promised, nodding once.

“I can’t see Keiji accepting this, so it must have been Fugaku,” Minato said, frowning. He didn’t look like himself when he frowned, so Obito turned his attention to Kakashi. Nothing had changed. While the three waited for some sign of him coming around, Kakashi remained asleep, only the steady beeping of the machines letting them know that he was alive, that he was still with them. “Maybe our little chat made a difference after all.”

“You talked to him?” Obito glanced at Minato, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Minato laughed, clearly nervous, and then he raised his hands, surrendering once more.

“It was a short talk. I just reminded him that Kakashi is a Konoha shinobi and he has no say in how I handle the village’s shinobi. I wouldn’t have let him touch Kakashi. I might not be able to do much for you, Obito, but I could do that much. I managed to drag out this discussion for eleven months, so I think I did pretty good with intimidating him, don’t you think?” Minato grinned and Obito couldn’t help but chuckle. Minato could be scary, if he wanted to be scary. Once, during training, Obito had hit a trip wire and paper bombs dropped down on him. Obito had to be rushed to the hospital with severe burns. Minato had yelled at him about situational awareness. Obito had been forced to do body-flicker drills until he dropped. As if on cue, Obito’s stomach growled. 

“Did you eat dinner?” Kushina gave him a look and he quickly nodded, but his stomach let out another growl, betraying him. Minato put a hand over his own stomach and let out a small sigh. He’d probably skipped dinner too. Kushina had been at the hospital for a while, so she might have as well. Obito contemplated leaving, but he didn’t want to waste the rest of his visiting hours going to get food. He checked the clock on the far wall. They had about another thirty minutes before the nurse would make an appearance and force them from the room. Not even the Hokage would get a break. “I can go and get you two something? I’m hungry too,” Kushina offered.

“Let me. I haven’t stretched my legs in a while,” Minato said, already getting to his feet. He raised his arms above his head to stretch and his back cracked. Obito arched a brow at him, since Minato was only twenty-three years old. “Never get old, Obito.”

“You’re twenty-three, sensei. You aren’t old.” Obito gave Minato a flat look.

“I’ll go with you,” Kushina decided, after pulling the covers up on Kakashi. She turned to Obito and smiled. “If he wakes up, let him know we’ll be right back!” Minato waited for her to circle around the bed, then he draped an arm over her shoulders. The two of them started a hushed conversation, one Obito chose to ignore, and then they were gone, leaving the door ajar. The bright hallway light hit the end of Kakashi’s bed, clashing with the dim interior of the room. Obito got up and shut the door. When he turned back around, Kakashi was staring at him.

“Kakashi?” Obito shouted the boy’s name, then he hurried to the bedside and sat down on the edge. Kakashi squinted his right eye, the other tightly shut again. Obito had only glimpsed the sharingan. Kakashi tried sitting up, but Obito put a hand on Kakashi’s chest and shoved him right back into bed. Kakashi hissed and Obito quickly pulled his hand away. “Sorry. I forgot about your heart,” Obito said, face falling. “Do you want something to drink? I can get you something to drink,” Obito spoke, already on his feet. “I’ll be right back.” Obito went to flag down a nurse, then she retrieved a pitcher of ice water and a single cup.

“What happened?” Kakashi didn’t even give Obito a chance to get into the room before asking the question. Obito closed the door behind him and took the pitcher to the bedside table, where he poured a glass of ice water for Kakashi. “How did I get back to Konoha?” Kakashi held out his left hand for the cup, but Obito ignored the hand and went for helping Kakashi take a drink. Obito could tell Kakashi didn’t appreciate the treatment, but Obito didn’t really care how Kakashi felt about being babied. Kakashi had almost died, so he no longer had a say. Obito helped him take a few more sips, then set the cup down beside the bed.

“One of my clan members, Daizo, saw you come in. My guess is one of your teammates carried you back. Your mission was cut short,” Obito frowned, knowing Kakashi wouldn’t take the news well. In fact, Kakashi found something interesting on the far wall; he refused to look at Obito again. Sighing, Obito stared at Kakashi’s chest. He wondered how the injury looked, if it looked as bad as Obito’s, if they were both more scars than anything. “You said you could handle it. What went wrong?”

“I can’t tell you,” Kakashi said, right eye moving to Obito’s face, and then back to the wall again. Obito gripped the bedspread, but he didn’t lash out at Kakashi. Neither of them needed an argument. Kakashi’s mission was likely classified. Obito understood what it meant to deal with classified information. And yet, he still found himself holding it against Kakashi. He wanted Kakashi to break the rules and tell him what happened; Obito wanted to know who was responsible for the teen’s injuries. Kakashi knew that though. He knew that Obito wanted to blame someone.

“Kushina and Minato-sensei were here, but they went to get food.” Kakashi nodded, then he made a move to reach for the cup of water. Obito beat him to it and helped him get another few sips. “Are you hungry? I can get you something.” Obito put the cup down again and prepared to leave, but Kakashi reached out and grabbed his arm. “Or not,” Obito said, reclaiming his seat. Kakashi released his hold on Obito’s arm and the two fell into silence. They didn’t say anything for another fifteen minutes, and then it was Kakashi asking for more water. “You can tell me what happened, right? I don’t need to know details on your mission. Just what happened. The doctor said you had a major heart attack.”

Kakashi seemed to consider the request, then he sighed. He winced in pain and Obito reached toward the call button. Kakashi had to slap his hand away. “I’m fine,” Kakashi insisted, forced to slap Obito’s hand away a second time. “I don’t want a nurse in here.” Obito wasn’t happy, but he kept his comments to himself. He remembered his promise; he remembered his prayers. “It was lightning. He shoved a kunai through my chest, and I thought I felt my heart stop,” Kakashi said, staring up at the ceiling then. Both of his eyes were open. Obito saw him reliving the moment, just as they’d been forced to relive the moment when Rin died. “I thought I heard Rin’s voice. I thought I was dead. I don’t remember anything after that.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me it wasn’t my time.”

“She was right.”

Obito had so many things he wanted to say. He wanted to tell Kakashi about Genma dragging him from the apartment, about almost falling off the roof; Obito wanted to tell Kakashi about seeing his body on the operating table. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t form the words. By that point, Kakashi had closed his left eye again, the sharingan gone from Obito’s sight. The eye hadn’t saved Kakashi. Luck had saved Kakashi. Obito couldn’t think of anything more. Kakashi was lucky to be alive; by extension, Obito was lucky. Maybe time had made the difference. Maybe centimeters had made the difference. Obito would never know. When the doorknob jiggled, both boys looked away from one another. Kushina nudged the door open with her foot. She grinned at them, then she dropped the containers of food on the floor. Her hand went to her mouth and she let out a choked noise. Minato quickly poked his head into the room. He’d been ready to ask her what was wrong, most likely so he could whine about his food, but he saw Kakashi. While Kushina went right for Kakashi, Minato stepped around the fallen containers and started picking up the food. The bento had survived the fall. 

“Why didn’t you come and get me?” Kushina stopped examining Kakashi’s face to glare at Obito. Minato stacked the bento boxes on the bedside table and went to claim Obito’s chair, since Obito had taken his spot on the bed.

“I asked him to stay,” Kakashi lied. He shrugged, but he winced again. Kushina was poking and prodding, trying to find what hurt, while Kakashi rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. My ribs hurt.” Kakashi tried reaching for his water and Obito stopped him again. Obito knew it was hard being the one in the hospital bed. He knew it was annoying when others insisted on doing every little thing. But Kakashi had to allow them to dote on him. Kakashi tried sitting up again, so Minato stood and helped him, rearranging the pillows behind Kakashi’s back. 

“Are you hungry? We have sushi and onigiri. I wasn’t sure what to get,” Kushina admitted. She grabbed one of the bento boxes and removed the lid. The food inside had been jumbled, but it was still edible. She’d even thought to slip a pair of chopsticks inside. Kakashi took one look at the food and wrinkled his nose. “What? It’s good!”

“Kushina, it might be because of the surgery. They had to put him under, remember?” Minato was patient with her, and he seemed far too amused. Kushina blushed and put the top back on the container. She placed it with the other bento and sank into her chair. “How is your pain?” Obito kicked himself for not asking that question. Obito had just assumed it was terrible.

“My chest hurts.” Kakashi reached up to touch his chest, but he quickly changed his mind. He was still pale, though he had more color than he had a few hours ago. Obito’s stomach growled and Kakashi arched a brow at him. Obito blushed and rested a hand over his stomach, trying to quiet the noise. It was Kushina who shoved a bento at Obito. “How long have I been out?”

“Not very long,” Kushina frowned, glancing at the clock. “About seven hours. You really had us worried. You should be more careful, you know!”

“Uh, right now isn’t the time to scold him. He’s still in the hospital,” Minato spoke, his index finger in the air. Kushina fixed her hard stare on Minato and he quickly changed his mind about speaking. Kushina didn’t continue her rant. Before anyone else could speak, the door to the room opened and a nurse stepped inside. Obito had just broken his chopsticks apart, so he stopped and stared down at the food. Visiting hours were over. Kushina grabbed the other two bento and Minato reached over to pat Kakashi’s shoulder. “We’ll be back first thing tomorrow. You just relax. Get some sleep.”

“I’ll make sure to bring you something way better than this hospital food,” Kushina stage whispered, grinning at Kakashi. She motioned for Obito to follow her, but Obito refused to move. The nurse was the same nurse that had helped them all those nights ago. She seemed to sigh to herself, as she knew Obito was about to put up a fight. “Obito, we’ll get here early. You can see him first thing, you know!”

“Do I have to carry you out of here?” Minato didn’t look impressed. He went to grab Obito and Obito turned his chopsticks around and slapped Minato’s hand away. “Ouch,” Minato said, rubbing his sore hand. They all knew he could have dodged the hit, but Obito took some joy in the sneak attack. 

“I’m not going to be able to get you to leave, am I?” The nurse shifted on her feet, looking between Kakashi and Obito. She glanced at the clock, then threw her hands in the air. “Fine. You two will be leaving though,” the nurse said, pointing at Kushina, then at Minato. Kushina looked ready to argue, but Minato wrapped an arm around her waist and started escorting her to the door. She didn’t even get to say goodbye before they left. It was Minato that called out a quick goodnight. The nurse looked at Obito, silently judging him. “Are you going to stay the whole night?”

“Um,” Obito stalled, looking at Kakashi. He didn’t find an answer on Kakashi’s face, so he looked back at the nurse and shrugged his shoulders. She took a long look at the chopsticks and bento he held, then she pursed her lips. “Yeah, I’m staying the night.”

“I’ll bring you a pillow and a blanket. I’m not bringing a bed in for you. If you want to stay, you’ll sleep in a chair, like every other stubborn visitor.” The nurse turned and walked away before Obito could reply, so Obito just stared at the spot where she’d been standing. She appeared a few moments later and dumped a pillow and blanket into the chair beside Kakashi’s bed. “I want him asleep at a decent hour,” she said, pointing her finger at Obito. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Obito said, blinking. She smiled at them both, then she turned and left, closing the door as she went. Kakashi chuckled, but his laughter didn’t continue long. He groaned in pain, one hand going to his side. “Let me get her back. You might need more medicine.” Obito sat his bento on the bedside table and left his chopsticks atop it. Obito slid off the bed and left the room, his sandals squeaking on the tile floor. They still hadn’t dried yet. He was very aware of the fact that his clothing was still damp. And the hospital air conditioning wasn’t helping him. He found the nurse down the hall in the small office. “I think his pain medication is wearing off, and can I get some clothes? Mine are wet,” Obito said, tugging at the bottom of his shirt.

“You know, you ask for a lot,” the woman joked, motioning for him to wait. She walked further back into the office then down another short hallway. When she returned, she had a small paper cup in one hand and a set of white hospital clothing in the other. She handed him the clothes, practically throwing them at him, then she continued down the hall to Kakashi’s room. She didn’t need to knock on the door, as she hadn’t knocked earlier, but she knocked then. She waited a second, then entered the room. “I’m giving this to you a little early. It’s going to make you drowsy,” she started, stepping around the chair. She handed Kakashi the paper cup, then she refilled his water cup. “If you feel drowsy, don’t fight it. You need your rest. I don’t care that you’re having a slumber party.”

“It’s not a slumber party!” Obito scowled at her and she narrowed her eyes at him. He huffed, turning his head away from her to stare out the window. She clicked her tongue at him, but she didn’t say anything more. She reclaimed the paper cup, stepped away from the bed, and left. She closed the door behind her. “It’s not a slumber party,” Obito mumbled to himself. 

“You don't have to pout,” Kakashi said. Obito thought he was smiling, but the staff had returned the mask right after surgery, so Obito couldn't really tell. For a moment, he wondered why he didn't violate Kakashi's privacy and take a peek. Then he remembered how scared and angry he'd been, thinking Kakashi would never wake up again. “How did your clan meeting go?”

Obito had already turned toward the bathroom to get out of his wet clothes, so he stopped and faced Kakashi. “I won, I guess. The former clan head, Keiji, called for a vote to have my sharingan sealed. Apparently it causes blindness,” Obito frowned, one shoulder shrugging. Kakashi nodded, though it was slow, almost as if he didn't know how else to respond. “They know we have the mangekyou, so they expect us to represent the clan. Keiji thinks you're going to make a name for yourself with that eye.”

“Do you think that?”

“I don't think you need the eye to make a name for yourself.”

“You're in a good mood.”

“Watching you die really lifted my spirits,” Obito joked, a smile on his face. Kakashi chuckled. Obito turned and went into the bathroom to fight with his damp clothing. Undressing took longer than it should have, but Obito managed to get his shirt and pants on without getting stuck. There was a lot of using the wall and wiggling around, but he hadn't wanted to ask Kakashi for help. When he emerged from the bathroom and claimed the chair on Kakashi's left, he took his sandals off and nudged them to the side. He draped the blanket over himself and pulled his legs up onto the chair.

“Comfortable?” Kakashi was teasing him, but he didn't care. He nodded. Obito would eventually change positions, when he finally decided to sleep, if he decided to sleep. “How bad is it?” Obito had expected that question a long time ago, back when Minato or Kushina could have handled the explanation. As it was, he didn't know how to tell Kakashi what would happen next, what the doctor had said. 

“You need another surgery. Something about tachycardia. You'll be in the hospital for a little while,” Obito frowned. He knew what Kakashi had meant. The boy wanted to know if he'd still be able to be a shinobi, and Obito couldn't answer that question, only the doctor could. “That's all I know. You're lucky to be alive, so you should be happy with whatever the doctor says.”

“Are you happy not being a shinobi?”

“No, I'm not.”

“Exactly.” Kakashi leaned back into his pillows and Obito moved around in the chair, relieving some pressure on his lower back. “Is Orochimaru helping you?” Obito shrugged his shoulders. “That's not really an answer, Obito.”

“I don't know. He's nice? I guess he's trying. He's taken blood and tissue samples. He says he thinks he could get me a new arm that isn't a prosthetic,” Obito said, lifting his gaze from the floor to look at Kakashi, “but I've thought about going to see Madara.”

“I think that's a bad idea,” Kakashi vetoed the idea. “I don't think you can trust him.”

“He helped me before, and he let me leave.”

“Did he? For all we know, he's after you, and you'll be walking right into his arms.”

“I don't think he's after me. He just said I owe him. And then he let me go,” Obito explained. Then again, Madara hadn't let him go. Guruguru had helped Obito escape. Guruguru had let Obito go. But Obito needed an arm, and Madara knew how to make that happen. “I'm going back there. I can take care of myself. I'll just talk to him. We're still clan members, even if he turned evil. He's too old to do anything to me.” Kakashi didn't look convinced, judging by his blank stare. “So what are you going to do, tell sensei?”

“Does the arm mean that much to you? You'd risk your life to get it?” Kakashi waited for him to weigh the words. He reached out for his water and Obito helped him by handing him the cup. Kakashi could drink just fine on his own, as he proved. When Kakashi had finished, Obito took the cup back and put it back on the bedside table.

“You don't understand because you aren't crippled.”

“You aren't crippled, Obito. It's your arm, and you need to be patient and let Orochimaru help you.”

“I'm going. If you're my friend, you won't rat me out.”

“Then I'm going with you,” Kakashi said, shrugging his shoulders. Obito's mouth fell open and he stared at Kakashi. The boy had said it as if it weren't a difficult decision to make. The two didn't even know if Kakashi could fight anymore. What would two useless teens do against Madara, even if the man was old and practically useless himself? “I'm not letting you go alone. I think we should get a team, but if you're going to be stupid, this is the best I can do.”

“Your idea is stupid too! What if something does happen? We don't know how serious your injury is!” Obito was whisper shouting, having the decency to attempt to keep his voice low. Kakashi rolled his eyes.

“If you're going, I'm going,” Kakashi informed him. He said the words with an air of finality, making it clear that Obito had no chance in changing Kakashi's mind.

“Fine. Maybe we can get a team,” Obito mumbled.

“That's the smartest thing you've said,” Kakashi replied, his biting words causing Obito to glare at him. Obito tried thinking of who they could ask, but he couldn't think of anyone he wanted to put in danger. He didn't even want Kakashi going. There really was the possibility that Madara would try to start something. The man had been adamant about Obito repaying his debt, whatever that entailed. “We could ask someone else from your clan? Is there anyone you do like?”

“Very funny,” Obito said, trying to think of someone. He could have asked Fugaku. As clan head, Fugaku should be involved in hunting for evidence of Madara's existence; then again, Fugaku would tell Minato, and then Minato would stop them from going. “I could ask Isuzu. She's a chunin. Maybe she might help. She likes me, I think.”

“Will she go to sensei about this?” So Kakashi was thinking the same thing Obito was thinking. They needed to sneak around, so the third member of their team needed to keep his or her mouth shut. Obito really couldn't say if Isuzu would operate outside of the law, so to speak. “I could always call on a favor.”

“Who owes you?”

“Raido.”

“Nope. He might still be in the hospital.” Obito frowned, thinking through their classmates. Rin would have gone, had she still been with them. “What about Gai?”

“I thought you didn't like Gai,” Kakashi said, giving him an odd look. Obito shook his head. He thought Gai was annoying, but Gai liked Kakashi. “What about Hayate?”

“Why don't we ask Kushina? She's on leave, but she'd help. I don't think she'd run right to sensei. We'd have to explain why we're going to meet a dangerous criminal though. Maybe we don't have to give her the full story?”

“You want to drag sensei's pregnant wife to confront Uchiha Madara?”

“Okay. When you put it that way, it sounds stupid, but it could work! She's strong. We've got the sharingan,” Obito said, pulling the blanket up to his chin and draping it over his shoulders. Kakashi clearly didn't like the idea, but he started yawning. “If you're tired, you should sleep. It's been a good slumber party.”

“Very funny. We didn't even play ninja,” Kakashi joked. Obito stared at him for a long moment, mind slowly comprehending that Kakashi had made a joke. “Obito?” Obito burst into laughter and Kakashi chuckled along with him. Kakashi's laughter was softer, and Obito knew the teen was trying not to hurt himself.

“Let's talk to Kushina. Please. It's worth a shot. She's usually really cool at keeping secrets, like that time I almost wet myself when a bear popped out of nowhere on our survival training exercise,” Obito admitted. Again, Kakashi laughed. “It was huge and it started chasing me!”

“How did you escape with your life?”

“Are you making fun of me right now? I could have _died_. It could have mauled me!”

“You're a shinobi and you'd let a _bear_ kill you?”

“I wouldn't _let_ it. It just would have!”

Kakashi kept laughing, until he grasped at his chest and leaned over. His monitor started beeping faster, the line on the screen jumping. Obito jumped out of his chair and reached for the call button, but Kakashi used his free hand to grab Obito's hand, stopping Obito from summoning the nurse. It took a few minutes for Kakashi to calm down, where Obito contemplated just running for the nurse. Kakashi's shoulders fell and he fell back against his pillows. Obito sat down on Kakashi's left, right on the side of the bed, and stared at the monitor. The numbers on the screen had dropped, probably returning to normal range. Obito didn't know much about medicine at all. Rin had been the medic.

“Does it hurt?” Obito didn't know what else to ask. Even though Kakashi had received medicine for the pain, Obito still wanted to know, as if Obito could somehow take all of the pain away. Kakashi shook his head and motioned for more water, so Obito topped off the cup and handed it to him. “Your second surgery will fix everything,” Obito said, even though he didn't know if it was true.

“Yeah,” Kakashi agreed, most likely doubting the words. Kakashi wasn't a fool; he looked at things from a realistic perspective. He didn't have Obito's blind faith right then, so Obito promised they'd share it. Obito had enough faith and prayers to cover them both for the next decade. “Are you sure you want to stay? You can go back to the apartment. You don't have to sleep in a chair.”

“I wouldn't want to be left alone, so I'm guessing you don't want to be left alone either. If you want me to go, then tell me to go,” Obito replied, his head tipped to the side in silent question. Kakashi frowned, but he didn't say anything. He didn't want Obito to leave, but he also didn't want Obito sleeping in a chair. “I'll be fine. Just get some sleep.” Obito's stomach growled, so he got up to retrieve his bento and chopsticks. When he returned to his seat to eat, Kakashi's eyes were closed. “I wish you'd tell me who attacked you,” Obito said, waiting until after Kakashi had dozed off to speak again. “I'm going to find out, and then they'll pay for what they did to you.”


	7. Chapter 7

Obito awoke at dawn, with the sunlight shining through the blinds onto his face. He had fallen asleep leaning to the left, so his neck and back ached and cracked when he finally moved. Kakashi had turned onto his right side, so his back was facing Obito. Getting to his feet, Obito stretched and collected his fallen blanket from the floor. The floor was freezing against his bare feet, so he quickly slipped on his sandals. In the bathroom, he checked his clothing, which was still a little damp, then he went in search of a nurse. His sandals no longer squeaked when he walked, as they’d dried overnight, so he heard every little noise, every cough, every groan, from every room he passed. Once or twice, he peeked into the rooms, but most of the people were nothing more than lumps in their beds. When Obito got to the nurse’s station, he didn’t see anyone around, so he assumed she was out on the floor, most likely tending to other patients. It was likely a new nurse, someone other than the mean-spirited woman he’d dealt with the night before. The clock on the wall read twenty after seven, which made Obito immediately think of breakfast. He spent a few more minutes at the station, then he decided to go and get breakfast on his own. On the walk down to the cafeteria, he ran into a couple of nurses, but both of them seemed to be in too much of a hurry to ask them for help. One nurse hurried toward the operating rooms, while the other was juggling several files and clipboards, clearly on her way to the lobby. While the lobby had about ten people, the cafeteria was completely empty. Obito was the first in line for food. The staff seemed surprised to see him. Obito almost forgot visiting hours didn’t start until eight in the morning. That explained the people milling about in the waiting room.

“Are you sure you can eat all of this?” By then, Obito had two servings of everything crammed onto the tiny tray. Two servings of fish, rice, and soup, then two hard-boiled eggs and two cartons of juice. After the cook asked the question, Obito took the tray and doubled back to the drink station, where he picked up two cartons of milk. He didn’t really know what Kakashi wanted, so he thought getting both was the best option. “Um, do you need help getting that to the table?”

“No, I’m taking it back to the room,” Obito smiled. He’d thought to grab money from his pants pocket, so he presented the woman with the correct change. At the mention of the room, the cook looked down at his hospital attire, then she frowned. “Oh! No, I’m not a patient. My clothes were wet and I,” Obito began, the woman quickly interrupting him.

“Uh huh. I didn’t think the breakfast menu was so awful that patients would leave their beds to get good food,” the cook mumbled, shaking her head.

Obito tried to correct her again, but she just turned and walked away, off to prepare fresh eggs. Obito really needed help with the tray, but the woman had already left, and he had no one else to ask. Sighing, Obito gripped the edge of the tray and started a juggling act to the second floor. Everyone he passed gave him weird looks, from the new receptionist to the visitors walking through the front doors. Going to the cafeteria meant cutting right through the lobby, so people saw him struggling. He smiled and laughed, and they let him go. Once he got to the second floor, he checked the nurse’s station again, but she wasn’t there. He returned to Kakashi’s room to find everything exactly the same. Kakashi was still on his right side, back facing the door. Thinking Kakashi was asleep, Obito reclaimed his chair and started opening one of the juice cartons.

“Do you want some? I’ll eat it all,” Obito said, after taking a long drink. At first, Kakashi didn’t move, but then he rolled onto his back. He took in the mountain of food on Obito’s tray and made the same face that the other people had made when they saw Obito carrying the heavy tray. “I couldn’t find the nurse, so I went and got you breakfast. I got everything they had, except for cereal and oatmeal. I thought you might want better food.” Obito stood and waited for Kakashi to pull himself into a seated position, then Obito lowered the tray down onto Kakashi’s lap. He took the food he wanted from the collection and set the bowls and plates on the bedside table, right next to Kakashi’s cup of water.

“The fact that you’re being so nice to me is actually scary.”

“I’m nice to you!”

“Not really.” Obito stared at him, then proceeded to grab Kakashi's chopsticks, snag one of the hard-boiled eggs, and stuff it into Kakashi's mouth. Kakashi narrowed his eyes at Obito, but he chewed and swallowed. He didn’t look pleased, and the egg took several bites before it was gone. Obito plopped back into his chair and Kakashi cleared his throat. “Now I believe it's you,” Kakashi drawled, snatching his chopsticks back so he could resume eating. After that, the two didn’t speak, except to say that something tasted good or something needed salt. It was hospital food, so they hadn’t expected much; they had set their standards low. Twenty minutes into their slow eating, the nurse arrived, and she carried a covered tray and a carton of orange juice. She took one look at the food Kakashi was eating and turned her fiery gaze on Obito.

“He’s on a strict diet!”

“Well, he was hungry and no one was feeding him!”

“Because it wasn’t time for breakfast!”

“Well, I would have known that, if I could have found you!” The nurse turned on her heels and left the room, leaving the door wide open. Kakashi sighed, a long, drawn-out sound that caused Obito to glare at him. “This is your fault.” The fact that Obito had missed Kakashi eating also irritated him, so he felt like lashing out. Kakashi was the only one present, so Obito blamed him.

“How is it my fault that you took it upon yourself to get me breakfast? Maybe you should have waited until it was time for breakfast. I’m on a strict diet, Obito.”

“I hate you.” When they'd finished eating, Obito stacked their empty plates and bowls back on the tray, then he set the tray on the bedside table, squeezing it in next to the cup and water pitcher. “Aren't you going to thank me?”

“Hm. No,” Kakashi replied, his eyes closing for a hidden smile. Obito contemplated smothering him, but ultimately decided against it. Being with Kakashi took Obito back to before Kannabi, sometimes as far back as the first time they'd met. Then again, Obito knew that there was no heat with Kakashi's words, not like there had been before Kannabi. They'd changed, so their relationship had changed. Obito genuinely enjoyed spending time with Kakashi, and he wasn't ashamed to admit it. Their hardships had brought them together. Even though Kakashi refused to thank Obito, Obito understood the underlying message. Kakashi was grateful. 

After breakfast, the two played rock, paper, scissors, where Kakashi won six times in a row. During the seventh game, Kushina and Minato showed up for a visit. Minato wasn't wearing his robes or his hat, so he likely came from home. Both of them looked tired, and Kushina looked a little pale, but they'd shown. Kushina took the other chair, while Minato sat on the edge of the bed. For the first five minutes, Kushina fussed over Kakashi, asking about his breakfast and fluffing his pillows, then she finally settled down. The nurse appeared sometime after nine, right when Minato had launched into his fourth tale about his own sensei, Jiraiya. Apparently, Jiraiya was pretty funny. Obito wished he'd had the chance to meet the man, and he'd said as much, so Minato promised he'd get in touch with Jiraiya and they'd all go out to eat. By the time the nurse got to speak, she had glared holes into Obito's head.

“I'm here to let you know we've scheduled your second surgery for today at five o'clock. No more heavy meals. We'll provide lunch and a snack.” The nurse collected the tray and empty bento from the bedside table, then she left the room.

“Why was she glaring at you, Obito?” Kushina narrowed her eyes, clearly suspicious. She probably thought he said something rude, but Obito didn't think he said or did anything wrong. He'd done the nurse's job by getting food for Kakashi.

“He brought me food from the cafeteria. Then the nurse showed up with my breakfast,” Kakashi replied, quickly becoming a traitor.

“Thanks, Kakashi,” Obito muttered, getting another smile with closed eyes. “I thought he was hungry and I couldn't find the nurse, so I solved the problem on my own. How was I supposed to know he was on a strict diet? She never told us.” Minato was busy laughing, while Kushina didn't look amused at all. Obito assumed Kushina would have been the one laughing. He thought Minato would have lectured him.

“Was it at least ramen?” Of course Kushina would ask that question. Kakashi made a face and she gave him an unimpressed stare. 

“No. It was halibut,” Obito answered, shrugging his shoulders. Minato had stopped laughing by then. “Are we going to wait together during the surgery?”

“I really can't stay. I'm behind. I didn't tell anyone that I would be leaving,” Minato said, smiling sheepishly. “I left a clone, but I doubt he's doing any work. My clones tend to be independent thinkers.”

“He means they're lazy and cranky,” Kushina explained, leaning over to punch Minato's arm. Minato winced and rubbed at his upper arm, which made Kushina laugh. “You wimp.” Obito exchanged a look with Kakashi, one that Kushina caught, then Kushina stopped her low-key flirting. “We can wait here, if you want, Obito, but I thought you might want to go home and get a shower. You look terrible.”

“Why is everyone picking on me today?” Obito ran his fingers through his hair, trying to fix the stiff strands and make himself more presentable. The rain and wind had done an awful job, and he really needed a haircut. Any longer and he'd need a ponytail. “Do you mind if I go home?” Obito had stopped his attempts at fixing his hair, deeming it a waste of time, and turned toward Kakashi.

“I'll be in surgery. I don't care what you do,” Kakashi said. He turned to fluff his own pillows and he grabbed at his left side. Kushina was faster than Obito. She went to find the nurse, most likely to discuss Kakashi's discomfort. Kushina worried a lot more than Obito, so he felt a little better about himself. Obito blamed her mothering instincts. He didn't understand women sometimes. “Do you want my report, sensei?”

“I could take it now. Obito, do you mind? Why don't you find Kushina?” Minato had quickly switched into Hokage mode.

Obito didn't want to leave, but he sighed and forced himself to his feet. He took slow steps toward the door, until Minato started to shoo him away. Frowning, Obito waved him off and left the room, closing the door a little too hard behind himself. He meant to find Kushina, he truly did, but the two started talking, and he could hear them through the door. Biting his lip, Obito looked both ways, making sure no one was approaching, then he leaned in to listen. Spying on Minato and Kakashi was wrong, but he wanted more mission details, and no one was forthcoming with information. He was forced to spy, honestly. They made him do it. Obito told himself whatever he needed to in order to quell the growing pit in his stomach. At first, Kakashi talked about how the rain had destroyed a lot of the trail, but he didn’t give enough details about the trail for Obito to get a general feel of the mission. Obito felt rushed. He knew that anyone could catch him standing so close to the door, his ear practically pressed to it.

“The patrol station outside of Takamiro had been burnt to the ground. We found some human remains. There should have been body scrolls. I had them on me,” Kakashi said. Minato made a sound, one that seemed encouraging, as Kakashi continued speaking. “By late afternoon, on the second day, we reached Hakote. Hidemaro triggered paper bombs and we scattered. We thought we would be attacked, but nothing happened. Hidemaro claimed that the bombs had been there for at least a day, due to the fact that some of the paper bombs didn’t properly ignite. The paper was damp. At dawn, on the second day, we reached the coastal town of Kiso. They must have known they were being followed. Yugao gave us a warning and Hidemaro and I disarmed the traps, but then the enemy swarmed us.”

“How many do you think there were?”

“Fifteen? Maybe twenty.” For a minute, no one said anything. Obito turned and tried listening with his other ear, thinking he’d missed something. When Kakashi spoke again, some of the words were lost. “We were forced to retreat. Hidemaro took point and I took rear,” Kakashi answered, replying to a muffled question from Minato. “Kirigakure.” That word had Obito’s attention. He hadn’t made out the rest of the prior sentence, nor the following sentence, but that word was enough. Leaning his forehead against the door, Obito let out a shaky breath and reigned in his own anger. Kirigakure had tried to kill Kakashi too. What were they doing in fire country, if they weren’t trying to start a major conflict? They were obviously behind everything.

“What are you doing?” Obito tripped over his own feet and slammed his forehead against the door. The loud thud ended the conversation taking place inside of the room. Obito quickly straightened up, though he rubbed at the aching spot in the middle of his forehead. “Were you listening in on their conversation? Obito!” Kushina had a small paper cup in one hand and what looked like a fresh pitcher of ice water in the other. She had a scary expression on her face and Obito swore he saw her nostrils flare.

“No! It’s really not what it looks like!”

“Then what is it?”

“I was resting my head against the door because I had a dizzy spell!”

“You were eavesdropping!”

“Shh!” Obito waved his hand and tried shushing her, but that only seemed to make it worse. She opened her mouth to continue scolding him, but she didn’t get the chance. The door to the room opened and Minato poked his head out. “Uh, hey. Look, I’m going to see a nurse about my head. I’m still feeling dizzy.”

“Nice try,” Minato said, reaching out to snag the back of Obito’s shirt. Obito had turned to walk away, but Minato dragged him back into the hospital room. “Give us a second, Kushina.” Minato smiled at her and she blushed, mumbling about how she hated waiting around. Minato gave Obito a shove into the room and then turned back to kiss Kushina. Obito made a disgusted face, but he knew better than to say anything. “How much did you hear?” Minato had closed the door and went back to his seat on the edge of the bed. Obito lingered near the door, waiting until Minato pointed him to the nearby chair, the one Obito had just vacated.

“I didn’t hear much,” Obito lied, sinking into the chair. Minato stared at Obito until the squirming started, then the man frowned. “I didn’t hear everything! Just a few sentences. You didn’t talk loud enough.” Obito looked over at Kakashi and found that Kakashi had his eyes closed, probably attempting to give the air of privacy to Minato and Obito. Obito wished Kakashi would say something to take the heat off of himself.

“How much did you hear?” Minato didn’t like repeating himself. Obito didn’t want to admit everything that he’d heard because that meant admitting he knew it was Kirigakure again. He shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, but he should have been on the mission with Kakashi, not that Hidemaro guy. Obito wanted to confront Kirigakure. “Obito, I’m very disappointed in you. You know about security clearance and confidentiality. You weren’t assigned this mission. You aren’t on the roster anymore,” Minato said, slowly shaking his head. Obito frowned, but he didn’t argue. He really should have known better. Kakashi hadn’t shared the mission details because Obito had no business knowing what had transpired. “I want you to forget everything you heard today. I should issue a harsher punishment,” Minato frowned.

“What are you going to do about Kirigakure? This is twice now! If you’d let me help!” Obito started to raise his voice and Minato’s expression darkened. Kakashi cracked open an eye to watch and Obito looked to him for help.

“Obito,” Minato tried, the name buried beneath Obito’s rambled reasonings. “Obito! You aren’t a shinobi anymore!”

Obito closed his mouth so quickly, with such force, that his teeth clicked against each other. He looked between Minato and Kakashi, but Minato didn’t look as if he regretted the words, and Kakashi didn’t want to get involved. Obito scooted the chair away from the bed, the legs scraping against the tiles, and lunged for the door. He threw open the door and ran out, almost knocking Kushina over. She dropped the pitcher of water and the water spilled all over the floor, the pitcher clattering to the ground. Obito glanced back at her, but he didn’t apologize. He ran past a nurse and her papers scattered; Obito saw her struggling to catch them all before they hit the ground, and then he was at the stairs, taking them two at a time, jumping down, down, down, until he reached the first floor. He’d expected someone to chase after him, but no one did. A voice, from the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, told him that no one cared enough. It whispered that Rin would have, that his grandmother would have. Obito contemplated going to the Uchiha district, maybe to see Mayumi, but his feet carried him through the village. He ran until his lungs ached, until his legs burned, and he found himself at the cemetery. He didn’t stop until he found Rin’s grave. The flowers were gone, though petals littered the ground where they had once been. The wind could have claimed them, or one of the cemetery attendants could have cleared them away. Obito didn’t need to see the chrysanthemums. The image of the flowers had been burned into his mind.

“I'm getting another arm tonight.” Obito didn't need to censor himself or whisper the words, as it was just him there, the only one standing before a grave. He had nothing to offer Rin. No flowers. No optimism. He only had himself and the growing frustration. He'd been in such a hurry that he’d run out in the hospital clothing, running from the words Minato had said. He ran from the truth, as he ran from so many other things. Sometimes, it was easier to run. “I know you'd tell me to wait for Kakashi or to think this through, but you aren't here anymore. And right now Kakashi is in the hospital. It's me. I'm making the call. If something happens to me, then something happens to me. I'll figure it out. Just look out for me.”

Obito sat down in front of the grave and cleared some of the fallen leaves from around Rin's name. Nohara Rin. Her name was clear as could be, the marker bright and new. She would have gone after him. She would have been there for him. Instead, he had the crazy idea to run off into the night in search of Madara. He had a half-baked idea and more hopes and prayers. He didn't know how to live without a hitai-ate. He only knew how to be a shinobi, how to complete missions. He wondered if Kakashi would face the same hardship. He wondered if Kakashi would be forced into retirement. Maybe then Obito wouldn't suffer alone. Obito gathered the individual petals and scattered them again, throwing them up into the air and watching them twirl toward the ground. Obito stayed there, staring at the grave marker or looking up at the sky. Hours passed that way, and no one came looking for him. He stayed with Rin until well into the afternoon, and then he patted her grave marker and told her goodbye, parting once more. 

Obito returned to the apartment, for the first time in about twenty-four hours. The first thing he did was head to the shower. The water was hot, as hot as he could stand, and the heat quickly steamed up the bathroom and filled up the mirror. When Obito had showered, he filled up the bathtub and soaked the rest of the grime off. He wondered if he was cursed, if somewhere along the lines he'd done something so wrong that karma slapped him, beating him into the ground. He could believe it, that karma had caught up to him. All those years of pent-up anger and envy and jealousy just festered, until he was nothing more than something ugly, uglier than his scars, uglier than the remnants of his right arm. Obito ducked down in the tub until the water covered up to his neck, his knees bent and up out of the water. The darker part of his mind resurfaced again, urging him to try drowning himself, despite the fact that it would have been difficult to do so. And then he contemplated electrocution. Obito thought of a lot of different ways to end his life. If he wasn't a shinobi, a good portion of himself was already dead, chipped away until nothing remained but broken dreams. He could never be Hokage, he could never be ANBU, if he couldn't resume his career as a shinobi. He didn't think he could handle being a civilian. He didn't really excel in other areas. He really was a loser. 

“Obito?” Someone was knocking on the front door, but Obito remained in the bath, his fingers and toes already resembling prunes. He wondered how much worse it could get. “Obito, it's Kushina. I know you're in there. I can feel your chakra signature, you know!” He sighed, but he didn't move. He waited for her to leave, to leave like everyone seemed to leave. “He didn't mean to raise his voice at you, but you weren't listening. He's not your sensei anymore, even though he lets you call him that. He's the Hokage. You have to remember that. Obito, open the door.”

“Why should I?” Obito had to speak louder for her to hear. He thought he heard the doorknob jiggle, but he'd locked the door. “It's locked, and it's staying that way.”

“Kakashi's surgery starts in two hours. Don't you want to spend more time with him?”

“No. He sat there and let the Hokage shout at me. He's as bad as you are.”

“You shouldn't have been eavesdropping!”

“We shouldn't let Kirigakure walk all over us! The Hokage is making a mistake!”

Obito drained the tub, then he fought with his clothing. He dressed in grey then, a grey, short-sleeved shirt with black pants. He wasn't a shinobi anymore, but he could pretend. At night, he would pretend. Obito left the bathroom and went to the kitchen to make something for lunch. Kushina knocked on the door again, but he ignored her. He started searching through pots and pans, purposely clanging them to cover her knocking. When he thought she'd gone, he stopped. Instead of cooking, he made ramen from a pack. 

When the doorknob jiggled, Obito sighed, “I'm not home. Go away.” Obito was stirring the packet of flavoring in and he didn't want to deal with Kushina. 

“Are you sure you aren't home?”

“Shouldn't you be in the hospital?”

“They won't miss me.”

“You didn't say anything when Minato-sensei lectured me. I don't want to talk to you either. Get lost, Kakashi,” Obito frowned. Obito went to the table to eat his bowl of ramen, but something clicked in the lock and the doorknob jiggled. The door popped open. “Did you just pick the lock?” Kakashi nodded. He was dressed in Obito's clothing, so the pants were a little shorter. The top fit well enough though. Obito shoved his chopsticks into the bowl of noodles and grabbed a big bite.

“Where did you go?” Kakashi took slow, careful steps, as if his legs were asleep. Obito wondered how the teen had escaped the hospital. Kakashi couldn't exactly run away.

“Rin's grave,” Obito mumbled, taking another bite of noodles. Obito didn't wait to chew all of his food before he spoke again. “How did you get out?”

“Gross.” Kakashi had made his way over to the table and flicked Obito's right temple. Obito quickly swallowed, even as he swatted Kakashi’s hand away. “I transformed into a nurse and walked out the front door. I left a clone behind.”

“Why didn’t you side with me? You know Kirigakure deserves to pay for what they did, yet you didn’t say one word. Don’t you want to make them pay for what they did to Rin, what they tried to do to you?” Obito watched Kakashi lower himself into a seated position. Kakashi winced and ended up stopping on his knees. “You should go back to the hospital,” Obito frowned, pointing his chopsticks at Kakashi. 

“I know that. I’ll get there,” Kakashi said, referring to the comment about returning to the hospital. “I didn’t say anything because you shouldn’t have been eavesdropping. You’re obsessed with getting revenge. That’s the main reason why you want another right arm. I know what you want to do.”

“Because they can’t just get away with it!”

“Obito, you killed everyone responsible. Do you want to kill every shinobi in Kirigakure?”

“Yes! They should never get the chance to hurt anyone else I care about. They should never mess with Konoha again.”

“We were involved in the war. Don’t you remember how bad it was?” Obito made a face at the question, his brows drawn together, lips set in a hard line. Kakashi sighed, but he made a face as well. His hand went to his left side, where his rib had been broken. He shouldn’t have left the hospital. Obito finished his ramen and took his bowl and chopsticks to the kitchen, where he deposited them in the kitchen sink. “Do you honestly want another war?” Obito didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to say that he would take war, if it meant avenging Rin. “I don’t think you should get another arm.”

“What? How can you say that? I need it!” Obito had whipped around and started yelling at Kakashi. “You wouldn’t understand! I gave you an eye when you lost your eye! You aren’t missing something! You heard the Hokage,” Obito said, refusing to call Minato his sensei. “I can’t be a shinobi without the arm.”

“So you can run off and get yourself killed? All you’ll do is search for opportunities to brush with Kirigakure shinobi. And don’t you think Minato-sensei will avoid sending you on those missions anyway? I wouldn’t let you go near Kirigakure.” Kakashi shook his head and Obito glared at him. Obito hadn’t thought of the possibility that Minato would refuse to give him missions related to Kirigakure. If he were Hokage, Obito probably wouldn’t let someone like himself on those types of missions. No one cared as much as Obito cared. That angered Obito. “We can’t go to war over one person. I know it’s Rin. I’m angry too. I want to fight them too. But it could cost a lot of people their lives.”

“You don’t understand,” Obito repeated. Kakashi sighed, clearly rolling his eyes at Obito. Without Kakashi’s hitai-ate in the way, Obito saw more of the boy’s facial expressions. Obito rested his back against the edge of the kitchen counter and glared at the floor. He could hope for Orochimaru to get him an arm. He could hope for Minato to assign him a mission. Or he could take matters into his own hands and follow through with the words he'd shared with Rin. He was going to see Madara, he decided again. No one would notice his absence. Kakashi would be in the hospital, Kushina would be at the hospital with him, and Minato would be at the tower, catching up on work. Obito would pretend to go home, then he could slip out of the village. There was a guard rotation in the evening. He could easily slip out. “Come on. I’m taking you back to the hospital.”

“Give me a minute.” Kakashi pressed a hand over his heart. Obito didn’t catch the motion until Kakashi started breathing deeply. Obito rushed over to him and wrapped an arm around him. Kakashi held up a hand, signaling for Obito to wait, but his breathing didn’t even out. The moment wasn’t passing like it had passed in the hospital. Obito tugged Kakashi off the floor and looped his arm around Kakashi’s waist, half-dragging Kakashi from the apartment. “Stop dragging me, just slow down.”

“And if you have a heart attack in the hallway? Maybe I should carry you.”

“Don’t even think about it. Just leave me on the floor.”

“I’m not letting you die in this stupid hallway. Kakashi!”

Kakashi tipped forward and Obito had to adjust his stance to keep Kakashi from falling onto the floor. Obito supported Kakashi’s weight, stooped down, and swung the teen up onto his shoulder. The motion would have been a lot easier with two hands; then again, if he had two arms, he could have carried Kakashi bridal style. Obito ran past one of the other tenants and struggled to get down the stairs. Out on the streets, Obito breezed past people, shouting out apologies to the people he bumped aside. As he ran, between apologies, he mumbled about how stupid Kakashi was for leaving the hospital. The boy must have felt bad about not sticking up for Obito, or at least cared enough about Obito to hunt him down and check on him. Obito would have done the same thing, but it was still stupid. He did stupid things. Apparently, they both did stupid things. Obito fought with the hospital doors. He had to tug on the handle and then jam his foot in the door before it shut. After that, he kicked the door the rest of the way open and rushed inside.

“Help!” Obito didn’t know whether to shout for the retreating nurse or deal with the frazzled receptionist, so he made a general plea. The nurse dropped the clipboard she’d been holding and ran forward. It just had to be the rude nurse from the intensive care unit.

“Why is he in the lobby? I just checked on him ten minutes ago!” The nurse motioned for Obito to follow her down the hallway to the operating rooms. On the way, they ran into a male nurse, who quickly took Kakashi from Obito. “What happened?”

“He started having trouble breathing, I think. His chest was rising and falling really fast, and then he put a hand over his chest. It happened before, so we thought it would pass. He fainted in the hallway of his building, so I rushed him here. I didn’t know what else to do!” Obito watched the male nurse hurry into one of the available operating rooms. The nurse in front of him put her hand on Obito’s chest to stop him from going farther down the hallway.

“What he did was stupid and reckless,” the nurse began to rant.

“I don’t care if it was stupid and reckless. Go do your job!”

The woman’s mouth fell open. She stuttered a few words, words Obito couldn’t make out, then she closed her mouth and quickly walked away. Obito tugged at his hair and paced back and forth. If something went wrong, if they couldn’t save Kakashi, then it was Obito’s fault. He should never have run off! Obito rested his forehead against the wall and lightly knocked his head against it a few times. When that didn’t help his nerves, he turned and pressed his back to the wall, then he slowly slid down to the floor. Doctors and nurses flew by, some going to the operating rooms, others leaving them. The receptionist found Obito and tried pulling him to his feet, but he refused to move. The receptionist had to go and find help, which turned out to be finding Kushina. The redhead rested a hand on his left shoulder and started asking him if he was alright. She tried getting him to speak, but Obito felt as if the words were far away, just forgotten sounds reverberating off the hospital walls. She got him to stand, and he followed along behind her, his feet carrying him away from the operating room. Kushina took him to the same chairs they’d once inhabited and he melted into the seat. His hair was a mess from where he’d gripped it and tugged, so she tried fixing it.

“What was he thinking?” Kushina started to rant, giving up on Obito’s messy hair. Obito tuned out most of the words, instead finding distractions in the other people inhabiting the waiting room. There was a couple huddled together near the back corner, their fingers intertwined, eyes downcast. Obito wondered if they had a child there, lost amongst the numerous operating rooms. “It’s not your fault, Obito,” Kushina said, her voice low. She must have read his mind. Sometimes she did that. He didn’t need to say anything at all, yet she knew. “We knew he needed this surgery. It’s just happening a little sooner than expected.”

“Why would he leave the hospital? I hate it! I hate that he can never go to the hospital; I hate that he can never stay in the hospital, when he clearly needs to be here!”

“You know why he doesn’t like hospitals.” Obito didn’t know, so he turned his head to stare at her. She bit her lower lip and brushed some of her long hair behind her right ear. After a few moments of silence, she sighed. “They took his father to the hospital, Obito. It was too late. They couldn’t save him.” Obito chose not to say anything in response. She offered no further details. Obito didn’t want the hospital to fail again. He hoped he wasn’t too late.

“So we just wait,” Obito finally managed to speak.

“We just wait,” Kushina agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter includes Madara!


	8. Chapter 8

As the heart surgery approached the second hour, Obito spotted yet another doctor leaving the hallway of operating rooms. He had a clipboard in his hand, just like all of the other doctors, but he took time to scan the waiting room. His eyes landed on Obito and he motioned with two fingers, waving Obito over to him. Obito nudged Kushina’s arm, as she’d dozed off twenty minutes ago. She took a few seconds to catch up, but she followed after Obito. Obito stood before the doctor and wiped his sweaty palm on the left thigh of his pants. He was nervous, as nervous as he’d ever been, and the doctor’s smile did little to soothe Obito’s nerves. The man had a larger stack of papers than the last doctor had, so some pages had been added, most likely more charts and diagrams. The doctor flipped through a couple of pages and made a small sound, then he turned the clipboard around to show a diagram of the human body, where little marks had been made. Notations filled the page.

“The surgery was a success, and we encountered no complications. He might have some scarring here and here,” the doctor said, pointing to the incision marks, “but I expect him to make a full recovery.”

“When can we take him home?” Kushina asked the first question, as she likely had more experience with hospitals than Obito. Instead of speaking, Obito nodded, agreeing with her question.

“Give it two days. We’ll need to keep an eye on him. The stunt he pulled made things a little harder for us, so he’s very lucky. Do you have anymore questions?” The man looked between Kushina and Obito, waiting for one to speak, so Obito cleared his throat.

“What kind of restrictions will he have? What about his career as a shinobi?” Obito shifted under the man’s gaze, practically squirming. Kushina seemed to second the questions, so the doctor smiled and let the pages on the clipboard fall back into place.

“Why is that always the question? Mr. Hatake will be limited to light exercise for a couple of weeks, and I suspect he’ll be forced to listen to that recommendation. After that, there’s no reason why he can’t resume being a shinobi. We’ve corrected the problem. We’ll need to have him back for check-ups every so many weeks, but if everything is good, he’s fine.”

“What about lightning? He uses lightning. That’s his primary affinity,” Obito said, interrupting Kushina before she could thank the doctor. The doctor paused, as if in thought, then he chuckled. “What’s so funny?” Obito frowned at him.

“You’re asking all of the right questions, for a kid. His heart will be fine, better than fine. Your boyfriend is lucky to have someone like you.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Obito immediately squared his shoulders and prepared to launch into a rant, but Kushina cut him off. The doctor blinked at the both of them and raised the clipboard as if to defend himself.

“Thank you, doctor,” Kushina said, slapping a hand over Obito’s mouth. “When can we see him?” Obito licked her palm and Kushina shrieked, jerking her hand away. She wiped the saliva off onto her green dress and glared at Obito, but the glare did nothing to counter Obito’s glare. The doctor told them they could see Kakashi right then, so he led them back to the intensive care unit, to the same room Kakashi had been in before the surgery. “Thank you,” Kushina thanked him again, a relieved smile on her face. Obito gave the doctor a dirty look and the man retreated, backing away from Obito. “You licked my hand!”

“He thought Kakashi was my boyfriend!”

“Keep your voice down!”

“He’s knocked out! He can’t hear us!” The two stood outside of the door and glared at one another again. Kushina turned to go into the room, and Obito followed. The same two chairs were in the room, so Obito sat on Kakashi’s left, and Kushina sat on Kakashi’s right. “He’ll be glad to hear he isn’t forced into retirement,” Obito commented, his voice low. Across from him, Kushina nodded, though she didn’t tear her eyes away from Kakashi. Obito felt guilty for ever hoping Kakashi would know how it felt to be forced out of the one job he was basically born to do. The thought made Obito feel dirty, so dirty that he wondered if Kushina could tell. He wondered if she knew what he was thinking again.

“I would have told him the same thing, that there are a lot of things he could still do without being on active duty. I know this isn’t about Kakashi. I’m not stupid, Obito.”

“I never said you were.”

The two didn’t continue the conversation. Kushina didn’t press Obito, and Obito didn’t take the initiative to change the subject. An hour into waiting, Kushina finally had enough. She said she was hungry and that she’d bring something back for them from the cafeteria. It was around dinner, so Obito didn’t complain. He knew he needed the food, because he planned on being gone for most of the night. On her way out, she lightly punched his left shoulder and Obito hissed in pain. No wonder Minato had reacted the way he’d reacted. Even playful hits hurt. Without Kushina there, Obito leaned back in the chair, tipping it back onto two legs. He stared up at the ceiling and counted the individual tiles, making the entire thing into a game of mathematics. For some reason, his mind took him back to his very first chunin exam, when he’d made it through on a mere technicality. He thought about Kakashi. That had been years ago, and Obito still remembered the taste of defeat. For some reason, he felt as if he’d been defeated all over again. Minato’s words echoed, even though the shouting had been hours ago. Obito leaned back a little too far and the chair started falling. Flailing, Obito didn’t even have the chance to react. The chair collided with the floor and he ended up rolling backwards. On the way down, he’d kicked the bedside table and rattled the water pitcher and cup. Obito had knocked his head off the floor, so he rubbed the back of his head first, still lying on the floor.

“Kakashi?” Obito tested to make sure he hadn’t woken Kakashi up, but the teen didn’t respond, so Obito took that to mean he was in the clear. “You know, you’re really lucky. I wish I had some of that luck. Maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation. You try to do one good thing and you ruin the rest of your life,” Obito sighed, slowly forcing himself off the floor. He straightened his clothes out and put the chair upright again, then he reclaimed his seat. “I really hope you can forgive me for what I’m going to do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Shit! You scared me! Give some warning! Your eyes aren’t even open!”

“Stop shouting. My head hurts,” Kakashi frowned, turning his head toward Obito. His right eye was open, though he was squinting. Compared to the blissful darkness he’d risen from, the room was likely too bright. Obito got up and went to dim the lights, then he went back to his seat. “I passed out, didn’t I?”

“Yes. You scared me. I can’t believe you decided breaking out of the hospital was a smart thing to do. You’re supposed to be smart!” Obito pointed his index finger at Kakashi and Kakashi raised a hand to wave him off. Kakashi tried sitting up, but he couldn’t get there on his own. Obito had to pull the pillows up and half-pull Kakashi up to a seated position. “Are you thirsty?”

“No, I feel sick,” Kakashi mumbled, staring up into Obito’s face. Without warning, Kakashi reached up and rested a hand against Obito’s right cheek. Lightly patting the cheek, he closed his eyes and smiled. 

“Um, what are you doing?”

“You need a haircut.”

“You’re still touching my face.” Obito took a step back and Kakashi’s hand fell back to the bed. He blamed the anesthesia, as Kakashi hadn’t been acting odd at the apartment. Then again, Kakashi had gone under for the first surgery, and he hadn’t acted oddly. “Should I get a nurse?” Obito didn’t know why he bothered asking Kakashi, as Kakashi wasn’t completely present. In response, Kakashi shrugged his shoulders. “Well, how do you feel?”

“Great,” Kakashi said, nodding his head. He started playing with his IV and Obito had to slap his hand to get him to stop. “Are you tired?”

“I could use a nap,” Obito answered honestly. Kakashi nodded again, then he started moving over in the bed. Obito arched a brow, but he didn’t ask what Kakashi was doing. In the end, Kakashi patted the open space on the bed. “Uh, no. I think I’m good right now. Thank you though.” Kakashi kept patting the bed and Obito slowly took a seat on the edge. That made Kakashi stop. “This is great,” Obito said, getting a smile in response. It took a few moments for Obito to realize that the mask was still in the way. “Hey, can I see your face, Kakashi?”

“Sure.” Kakashi reached up to tug at the mask, but Obito really couldn’t let him go through with it. Grumbling, Obito reached out and took Kakashi’s left hand in his own. “Don’t you want to see my face?” Kakashi arched a brow at Obito, then tried to use his other hand to pull the mask down. Obito had to grab that hand too. 

“You don’t know what you’re saying right now. Anesthesia, pain pills, or something in the water has you really out of it and I don’t want to take advantage of you,” Obito frowned, releasing Kakashi’s hands.

“You make it sound like I’m giving you my body,” Kakashi said, expression flat. Obito sputtered, unable to form words. “If you don’t want to see my face, don’t ask.”

“Listen here, you bastard,” Obito began.

“I’m back! He’s awake? Why didn’t you come and get me? This is the second time, Obito!” Kushina shoved the tray of food at Obito then went to her chair on Kakashi’s right. “How do you feel?”

“He feels great,” Obito answered. Kakashi pointed at Obito and nodded in agreement, then he started playing with the IV again. Obito slapped Kakashi’s hand once more. “He’s acting really weird. Is he supposed to be this way?”

“It could be the anesthesia or it could be the pain medication he’s hooked up to,” Kushina said, leaning over to examine the drip. She looked like she recognized the liquid, but then she shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe what they have him on is really strong. He said he felt great? I don’t think we need to get the nurse.” Obito moved on to examining the tray of food, while Kushina patted Kakashi’s right hand. “You’ll make a full recovery,” she grinned at him.

“When can we leave?” Kakashi had started looking over the food too, even though he’d said he felt sick not even ten minutes ago. He reached for the milk and Obito pulled the tray out of reach. Even though Kushina had answered his question and started a conversation with him, Kakashi seemed too interested in the carton of milk. Obito would pull the tray away, then Kakashi would lean forward a little bit more. Obito eventually filled Kakashi’s cup with ice water and handed the cup to the boy. “I don’t want water.”

“Too bad. You said you felt sick and you think I’m letting you have milk? Do you want to throw up all over yourself?”

“You’re atrocious.” Obito didn’t look impressed, but he didn’t immediately respond. Kakashi sighed. “Atrocious means,” Kakashi started to say. Obito had to slap Kakashi’s hand away from the IV again.

“I know what it means! You’re still so annoying!” 

“Give me my plate. It has the chicken. I got you fish,” Kushina interrupted their bickering. Obito rested the tray on his legs and handed Kushina the plate with grilled chicken and rice, then a pair of chopsticks. The chicken had some sort of sauce on it, most likely something salty, and the rice was plain. Obito’s fish came with a lemon wedge and plain rice. As Kushina ate, Kakashi leaned back into his pillows and sighed, as if the lack of conversation left him bored, which it probably did, honestly. “Are you spending the night again, Obito?”

“Not tonight,” Obito said, avoiding eye contact. Kushina overlooked it, but Kakashi kept staring at him. Obito wondered if Kakashi could read his mind, if that’s why Kakashi stared. “I think I need to sleep in a bed. My neck still hurts from last night. Is that okay with you, Kakashi?”

“I told you not to stay here last night, remember?” Kakashi grabbed the milk carton and opened it, downing a drink before Obito could stop him. Kakashi swallowed a few more times, as if the lingering taste of milk provided him with something. Obito snatched the carton back and sat it on the lunch tray. It took a few minutes, but Kakashi put his hand over his stomach. 

“I knew it! You feel worse, don’t you?” Obito grabbed the cup of water and shoved it into Kakashi’s left hand. “Sip it. And don’t get sick on me, if you throw up. Throw up on Kushina. She needs practice for when she’s a mom.”

“What? I’m trying to eat, Obito. That’s gross,” Kushina huffed, shoving another bite of chicken into her mouth. Kakashi sipped on the water, just as Obito had instructed him.

Kushina left first, sometime around nine in the evening, long after the sky had gone dark. Kakashi fell in and out of sleep, constantly tossing and turning, checking the chairs to see if anyone else remained. Obito felt bad leaving him there. He considered changing his plans, going back to the plan he’d made with Kakashi. He knew he shouldn't leave alone, but he'd already admitted he made stupid decisions. Around ten, Obito went over to the bedside and tugged the covers up to Kakashi's chest, from where they'd bunched up around his waist. Obito took the stuffed panda from the right bedside table and dropped it onto the bed, well within Kakashi's reach. And then Obito left, closing the door behind himself. He stopped at the front desk to let the night receptionist know that he might be back, then he headed back to the apartment. Outside, a light rain had started, nothing bad enough for Obito to cancel his plans, but definitely enough for him to dig out one of his cloaks. When he reached the apartment, he went for his closet first, where he grabbed a black cloak. After the cloak was on and fastened, Obito went for weapons. He hid shuriken in the cloak, then he grabbed his father's tanto, tying it on at his lower back, hilt facing the left side. He hoped he wouldn't have to fight, but he knew he could, if backed into a corner.

Obito climbed out of the apartment through a window, one of the two at the fire escape, so he took the fire escape to the ground. He pulled his hood up and used a body flicker to disappear from the alley. He avoided the rooftops, just because he wanted less of a chance of meeting shinobi. In fact, he only ran into a few people, two older men and a young woman, all of whom were leaving the closing ramen shop. Obito half-expected to see Kushina there, but he reminded himself that she'd been too tired to stay. If it hadn't been for a nice nurse on hand, Kushina and Obito would have been kicked out at the end of visiting hours. They'd been lucky. The thought was just another thought to keep Obito grounded. He'd never left the village on his own, never, yet he had to break in and out of the village within the span of a few hours. When Obito neared the gate, he watched and waited for the shift change. Two shinobi approached, taking the total to four. While they talked, Obito used a well-timed body flicker to get beyond the gate. He'd suppressed his chakra as much as he could, so they might have assumed a breeze had occurred, something light and localized. Getting out proved to be easy, almost too easy. 

Obito tried to remember the route he'd taken, both from the point where Rin had died and from the cave. When he reached the point where Rin had died, Obito still saw the remains of trees. Even though the bodies had been removed, even though the blood had been washed away, he remembered the scene, as if he were living it all over again. Obito stood in the middle of the expanse and tried to see the angle in which he'd watched Rin die. From that point, he knew how to retrace his steps. He spent the majority of his time trying not to trip and fall on his face. He had no real moonlight to guide him, just whatever light filtered through the rain clouds. Sometime during his journey, the rain had picked up, the warm droplets hitting the cloak, hitting Obito's face. He got lost, on his way. It took him two hours to finally locate the correct path again. When he did, he easily located the cave system. Nothing had changed, right down to the remnants of the boulder that had once trapped him inside.

“Look who it is!” Guruguru greeted him first, followed by the other creature, who he dubbed Zetsu. Madara was nowhere in sight. “What are you doing here?” Guruguru didn't sound surprised at all. Obito walked over to the two, still not seeing Madara anywhere. In fact, it looked as if the area had been cleared out. 

“Where's Madara?” Obito looked at Guruguru, because he liked Guruguru more than Zetsu.

“He's dead. And he never told me what it was like to poo,” Guruguru complained. Obito told him to shut up and he laughed. He never could quite tell whether Guruguru considered itself male or female, and he didn't care to ask. Zetsu turned and walked away, disappearing into the darkness. Obito's eye had yet to adjust, so he made out very little in the cave. If Guruguru and Zetsu weren't blinding white, he might have missed them altogether. “I know why you're here!”

“So do I,” Zetsu said, returning to them, a glass jar of murky water in his hands. “Were you looking for this?” Obito didn’t understand. He hadn’t been looking for a jar of dirty water. Obito narrowed his eye and his sharingan activated. He'd known the two for months, but he didn't trust them enough. He suspected there was more to them than pure hospitality. Guruguru shrugged his shoulders, appearing as innocent as he had before the two took off to save Obito’s teammates. 

“What about what Madara said?”

“Do you want to make Kirigakure pay? This is how you do it,” Zetsu said, giving the jar a little shake. Slowly, Obito crossed the distance between them and took the offered jar. Something was inside, as he heard something connect with the side of the jar. Obito started backing away from the two, still looking between them for movement. 

“Madara is really dead?”

“Do you want to see his body?” 

Obito shouldn't have nodded at Zetsu, but he did. Even as they walked deeper into the tunnels, Obito kept his sharingan active. Zetsu led the way, while Guruguru brought up the rear; they sandwiched Obito between them. The cavern where they found Madara's body had water dripping from overhead. The air smelled musty, and Obito detected the scent of something rotting. He bet everything that the smell was coming from a huddled figure in the far corner of the cavern. Zetsu didn't approach the corpse. He left Obito to walk forward, to examine Madara's body. It was Madara, in the end. Obito had to grab a handful of hair and tug, lifting the head up to reveal Madara's face. The eyes were gone, so Obito saw right into the empty sockets. Obito's stomach flipped and he dry heaved. He released Madara's hair and the head fell. A loud _crack_ echoed off the walls and the ceiling. He'd broken Madara's neck.

“What happened to him? I thought he could live, as long as he was tied to the statue! Why is he dead?” Obito rounded on the two, but neither seemed bothered by his yelling.

“He thought it was time,” Guruguru said, shrugging its shoulders. Obito slipped on the wet ground and almost fell, but Guruguru caught his elbow and steadied him. Obito stared at the corpse again, trying to decide how he felt about the man's death. Madara had saved his life. Despite what had happened in the past, despite Madara's strong feelings on the clan that he felt had betrayed him, he had chosen to help Obito. He was a good man. He wanted nothing more than a world of peace and prosperity. But maybe it had been his time. He shouldn't have lived as long as he did. “You can have the eyes.”

“You stole his eyes?” Obito glared at Guruguru, feeling as though he knew nothing about the creature, as if their months together taught Obito nothing.

“Did you want us to let them fall into the wrong hands? He asked us to destroy them,” Zetsu replied, “but we waited for you.”

“What if I had never come back? Would you still be waiting?” Obito stared down at the jar, his stomach churning. 

He needed an eye, but he didn't know if he could stoop so low as to steal them. What would the people say when he returned to Konoha with a jar of eyes? They would go looking for Madara. They would finally believe Obito. But would they think he'd killed an old man for the sharingan? Obito didn't know. He couldn't think straight. So many scenarios played through his mind, so many possibilities presented themselves. Obito felt sick. He couldn't stop staring at the corpse, even as Guruguru chatted about sightseeing and rain. Obito wasn't paying attention, but he thought he heard Amegakure, which had Obito wondering why Guruguru had gone all of the way to Amegakure. He didn't have any business there. Madara had no business there. Then again, Madara had no business left. Corpses didn't make plans. As if he heard Obito’s thoughts, Zetsu spoke again.. 

“The eyes come with a price.”

“What could _you_ want?” Obito sized Zetsu up. Finally, he had the answer he’d been waiting for, as none of them were so giving.

“When you meet a man with the rinnegan, show him this eye. That's all,” Zetsu said. Obito held up the jar and stared in at the eyes. The eyes looked like any other eyes, but Obito knew better than to assume. Obito looked at them both, first Zetsu, then Guruguru.

“Say I show him this eye. What will happen?” Neither would say, at first, then Guruguru laughed. Obito blushed, though he frowned. He didn't like people laughing at him.

“Are you scared?” Guruguru leaned forward, invading Obito's personal space.

“I'm not scared! So I show this guy this eye and he'll know it's Madara's?” Zetsu nodded then, so Obito stared down at the eye. “Is it so that the guy knows Madara is dead? I could just tell him, if I ever meet him.”

“He needs to see the eye to believe it. Madara saved him too,” Guruguru said, flicking the glass jar. Neither of them had a reason to lie to Obito. They offered him a pair of eyes, with one single string attached to it. Obito could show the eye to the guy and move on; in fact, there was no guarantee he'd ever meet a man with the rinnegan. The rinnegan was a myth. Obito had never heard of a single person having it, despite hearing bedtime stories about a single shinobi blessed with the eyes. Even Madara hadn't had the rinnegan.

“Alright,” Obito finally said, nodding once. “I can do that.” Zetsu turned and started leading the way from the cavern, but Obito looked over his right shoulder every few steps. He wondered if they should bury Madara, if he should care more about the man who had saved him. “Wait. Do we have anything to bury him? We can't just leave him like this,” Obito frowned, motioning back toward the corpse. 

“We can seal him inside,” Guruguru suggested.

Obito didn't like that option, but he doubted they had a shovel, and he didn't want to dig a grave with a kunai. They spent almost an hour finding a rock big enough to wedge in the opening of the cavern, and then they had to roll it into place, which added more time to the job. Obito was hot and sweaty, by the end. He'd removed his cloak at the beginning, so he went back to the place where he'd once stayed and collapsed on top of the cloak, his backside connecting hard with the ground. It was just the three of them then, all of them going through different emotions, Obito assumed. Zetsu and Guruguru had stayed with Madara until the end. They had to feel some way about his death. Obito owed everything to Madara. His new friendship with Kakashi, all of his strengthening relationships, really, and his bright future. Madara had made him whole again. He'd granted Obito the ability to fly, where Obito had once been grounded. Obito wondered what would happen with Zetsu and Guruguru. They had to move on. They needed to leave, before Minato finally sent a team to investigate.

“Where are you two going to go?”

“I'm going to Amegakure,” Zetsu answered, no hesitation with his response. Obito turned to Guruguru then, and he seemed to contemplate his options. For a moment, Obito wondered if he'd been heard. Then Guruguru slapped his right fist onto his left palm. 

“You should come with us,” Guruguru said. “Leave Konoha and destroy Kirigakure. Avoid the war it would cause. I'll help you. There are others willing to help you in Amegakure.”

“You mean defect? I can't do that. I'd be a missing nin,” Obito frowned, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “I can't leave my friends; some of them are like family. Why don't you come to Konoha?”

“With you? Why would I do that?” Guruguru tipped its head to the side, making a hand motion as if listening closely. Zetsu seemed amused, maybe because Obito hadn't asked him. Obito knew Guruguru better. Despite the fact that the creature annoyed him, Obito owed Guruguru a great deal. 

“You're really strong. You'd be helping out again,” Obito said, looking up into his face, as he stood before him. Guruguru didn't say anything, instead looking to Zetsu. “We can fight together again, just like before.”

“I like fighting,” Guruguru admitted, practically drooling over the idea. “Will we kill people, Obito?” That held Zetsu’s attention too. Obito thought of Kirigakure again, of being an absolute avenger. He wanted to make them suffer. 

“We'll tear the village apart,” Obito decided, eye narrowed, gaze hard. 

“Obito isn't a criminal mastermind, but Madara is. Madara was,” Zetsu reminded them. “Be Madara. Let his name inspire fear again.”

“I'll find you,” Guruguru stated, a promise that it would return for Obito, a promise that they weren’t done, that things weren’t as simple as Obito had originally thought. Obito was still considering their words, still toying with the idea of adopting another identity. He would step into the role, as needed. He could rinse his hands of the blood Madara had shed and go right back to being Obito again. 

“Madara,” Obito said aloud. “I'll be Madara.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I promised Madara, but I didn't say he'd be ALIVE. So ha!

**Author's Note:**

> I have a nasty habit of doing many, many things at once (if you could see my google drive, you'd really understand). This was actually meant for a prompt (yes, I'm still working on those too), but I went over this, saw that this would also work for Whumptober's prompt ("Don't Move"), and then ta-dah. This was supposed to be a one-shot. Anyone reading this note right now is probably going, "That was a shitty ending." Yeah, that's because it's not a one shot. I don't know what the hell this is. I need time to figure it out. :)
> 
> If anyone is interested in the prompt: “It’s a long story.”  
“You conned me into thinking you were dead for eleven months. I have time.”


End file.
